


Stole Soul Picnic

by San Antonio Rose (ramblin_rosie)



Series: Tok'ra Apocalypse [6]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Cross-Posted on LiveJournal, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s06e01 Exile on Main St., Episode: s06e10 Caged Heat, Episode: s06e12 Like a Virgin, Episode: s08e12 As Time Goes By, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Mind Manipulation, Survivor Guilt, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 68,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27729670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramblin_rosie/pseuds/San%20Antonio%20Rose
Summary: When Hell’s civil war spills beyond Earth’s borders, no part of the universe is safe.  Now hunters and Tok’ra must reunite to save not only their friends and some old enemies but also those who would not deign to get involved.
Relationships: Josie Sands/Henry Winchester, Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester
Series: Tok'ra Apocalypse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2027690
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. Prologue: The New Sheriffs

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting this story as a WIP. I therefore make no promises as to the speed or frequency of updates. Reviews may help prod the muse—but I'll be finishing it eventually regardless, so please don't think I'm trying to hold the story hostage! RL is just enough of a bear that updates may take a while.
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful betas, jennytork and ansostuff!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This prologue is a missing scene from “For Love Is Strong as Death.” If you haven’t read the Tok’ra Apocalypse trilogy before, I recommend that you do so before moving on to the rest of this story, since I won’t be reviewing all of its events here.

May 2010

Dean Winchester and his Tok’ra symbiote Dishon were settled in Cicero, Indiana, with Lisa Braeden and her son Ben. Sam Winchester and his symbiote Salim were locked in Lucifer’s Cage after besting both Lucifer and Michael, and they had forbidden any attempt at rescue, intending instead to make their own way out of Hell by the safest route. Bobby Singer was well and back in the swing of hunting, and Homeworld Command had gone back to its normal routines.

The Apocalypse was thwarted. And the angels Gabriel and Castiel had little left to do on Earth.

Finally, after checking the wards at Cheyenne Mountain one last time, Gabriel turned to Castiel with a sigh. “C’mon, little brother. Guess it’s time to face the music, head Home.”

Castiel grimaced. “Must we? Raphael and I didn’t part on good terms when last we met.”

“Yeah, and the time before that, he exploded you. But we need to go make sure he doesn’t get any stupid ideas about trying to restart the war.”

“You think he might?”

“Let’s just say I’ll be pleasantly surprised if I don’t have to knock some sense into him.”

Castiel heaved a heavy sigh. Gabriel grabbed him gently by the back of the neck, gave it a sympathetic squeeze, and flew both of them back to Heaven.

Sure enough, they arrived just as Raphael was beginning an address to the Host. “The humans have succeeded in returning Lucifer to his Cage,” he was saying as Gabriel stopped to lounge in the doorway of the illusory hall where the meeting was taking place and motioned for Castiel to do likewise, “but that should be seen only as a temporary setback. As soon as is reasonable, we need to retrieve at least Michael, if not Lucifer, so that the battle can be fought as it was foretold. This is Our Father’s will.”

The other angels bowed their heads in acknowledgment, some more reluctantly than others, but Gabriel called, “What in all eternity makes you think _that_ , Rapha?”

The angels’ surprise was palpable as they turned to look at the latecomers. Even Raphael looked startled as he replied, “Gabriel! Castiel! I thought—I feared—”

“I’m not dead yet. And baby brother here’s not dead... again. You didn’t answer my question.”

“Why would it not be Father’s will? I want it.”

“Kid, did you ever stop to think that if Dad really wanted this to play out according to this cockeyed prophecy, it would not have taken the combined efforts of Heaven and Hell to drive the Winchesters apart, and Sam would _never_ have been able to overpower Luci? Never mind allowing Mike to get pulled in with him!”

Raphael scowled. “You’ve grown irreverent, brother.”

“ _Ad hominem_. Or in this case, _ad angelum_. Try again.”

“You believed once.”

“Oh, I still believe Dad. But as much as I want the fighting to stop, Sam and Dean made me realize this ain’t the way, not Dad’s way. We’re supposed to _serve_ humans, Rapha, not kill them off like they’re some kind of pest just because they’re sinful. It’s not like we’re perfect.”

“You would let wickedness go unpunished?”

“Hellooo? Agent of poetic justice, here! Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be interested in _healing_?” Gabriel was trying to keep his quick temper in check, but he wasn’t sure how long he’d succeed.

Raphael’s jaw twitched—a very human gesture of annoyance that he evidently wasn’t aware he’d picked up from his vessel. Then he turned his scowl on Castiel, who wasn’t leaning against the doorframe like Gabriel but was still clearly standing with him. “And you, Castiel? Do you deny that this plan is Father’s will? You cannot have forgotten the last time you openly defied the Host.”

Castiel’s wings—four of them now—flared out in anger, though his face and voice remained calm. “You are not the arbiter of right and wrong, Raphael. Father is. We were wrong to treat the Winchesters as we did, and you and Michael were wrong to use Anna against them and to coerce me into releasing Sam to kill Lilith. The world must end someday, but it must end in Father’s time, and it will not end at the hands of Sam and Dean. If we act without Father’s blessing, Lucifer is stronger than any of us, even Michael... and though he did not mean to, Zachariah proved to me that we cannot defeat Lucifer this way. _Many_ will suffer, brother, humans killed by disaster and war or turned by Lucifer’s virus, angels killed by Lucifer or dispirited by defeat—some dispirited enough to fall and join him, others at best relegated to a life of human suffering we do not know how to bear with human grace.”

Raphael’s scowl turned into a puzzled frown. “When did Zachariah do this?”

“Some months ago, he showed Dean the state of the world in 2014 if he kept his distance from both Sam and Michael. Dean didn’t confide much to me, but there were times that I sought to speak with him in his dreams and happened upon a nightmare of those memories.”

“What virus do you speak of?”

Castiel explained about Croatoan, giving as vivid a description as he could of its effects. He didn’t reveal that the medical team in Atlantis had devised a vaccine, in part because it would undermine his point, but mostly because there was no guarantee that it could be manufactured and distributed quickly enough should Lucifer return and restore Pestilence to his full strength.

There was a long silence after he finished. Then a junior angel left his place in the assembly and walked back to stand beside Castiel.

Raphael blinked. “Balthazar?”

“You lot do what you want,” Balthazar replied, sounding surprisingly like his British vessel. “As for me, I’m going to follow my dear friend and the Messenger, both of whom seem to be on Father’s good side, rather than some ridiculous scheme that’s stunk like Lucifer to me from the start. I mean, if this were destiny, would we have had to resort to _time travel_ to get the pieces into place?”

At that, an angel whose vessel was a blonde woman slipped out of her place and strode back to join the other three. “I don’t claim to understand,” she said, “but I trust my brother Castiel. If he is following Gabriel, I will do the same.”

Castiel smiled gently at her. “Thank you, Rachel.”

More angels followed, first singly, then two and three and ten at a time, until roughly half of the Host had clearly chosen to side with Gabriel and Castiel. Those who remained or edged closer to Raphael—many of them among the upper echelons of Heaven—looked at one another nervously, unsure whether to believe that Gabriel actually had a point or to cling to this plan in which they had, possibly wrongly, invested so much time and effort.

Raphael, on the other hand, just looked confused at this unusual show of defiance. Finally, clearly lost for another way to try to win back support from Gabriel short of open civil war, he called, “Will someone go get Joshua?”

“There’s no need,” the gardener angel replied, appearing at one side of the hall between the two factions. “I’ve just heard from Father.”

Raphael was visibly shocked, but he hid it swiftly. “And?”

“He asked you to consider what it was that gave Sam the power to overcome Lucifer, which no human should have been able to do.”

Raphael shook his head in confusion, but Gabriel replied, “Love.”

Joshua nodded. “That’s right. Dean’s love for Sam, refusing to let him die alone. Sam’s love for Dean, refusing to let Lucifer beat him to death. Lucifer didn’t understand that. I’m not sure Michael did, either. Do we?”

Gabriel ached to his very grace. Even Lucifer had seemed reluctant to kill him, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his brothers and sisters treat each other the way Sam and Dean had those last few months. The world called them codependent, but if one looked past the unhealthy shape their upbringing had given their relationship, weren’t there virtues there that the Host could learn from?

Raphael looked lost, but he did eventually make eye contact with Gabriel.

“Please, bro,” Gabriel pleaded quietly. “Stop the fighting.”

Raphael huffed with a small, sad smile. “You, who bear Father’s might, want nothing more than to end our strife.”

“I’ll bring Dad’s might down on your head if I have to, Rapha. Don’t make me do that.”

Raphael wavered for another long moment before he sighed. “No. You are the Messenger, the elder, and the stronger. I will yield.”

Any disappointment the most hardened of Raphael’s followers might have felt was drowned in the wave of relief that rippled from the rest of the Host like a silent sigh. Gabriel grinned at Castiel, then snapped his fingers, and a box of assorted chocolates adorned with a cheekily grinning ‘cherub’ appeared in Raphael’s hand.

Raphael blinked and looked down at it in confusion. “What is this?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Peace offering.”

“But why this?”

Gabriel was pleasantly surprised to hear Castiel answer, “Dean says life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you will get.”

Gabriel couldn’t help it. He laughed for a solid Earth minute.


	2. Chapter 1: Just Another Day in Outer Space

August 2011

Dr. Radek Zelenka’s day was _not_ going well.

Part of the problem was that the experiment on which he had his team working had not been producing results as it should. This morning he had finally broken down and called in Dean, since the mechanism they were trying to use appeared to need someone with a stronger Ancient Technology Activation gene than any of the therapy-induced carriers on the team had. Radek himself didn’t have the ATA gene at all, and both Lt. Col. John Sheppard and Dr. Rodney McKay, whose genes (natural and induced, respectively) were strongest, were busy with other urgent projects elsewhere in Atlantis. Since their arrival in the city the previous November, Sam and Dean were the next strongest natural gene carriers available; Sam was still busy working on the Coalition law database, but Dean, who was assigned to Radek’s department as an engineer, wasn’t doing anything that day that couldn’t be reassigned to someone else. Barely had Dean located the problem and begun fixing it, however, when the infamously ill-tempered Dr. Peter Kavanagh, who had arrived a few hours earlier on the _Daedalus_ , wandered into the lab to offer his assistance.

“No, thanks,” Dean said pleasantly without looking away from the device he was adjusting. “I’m gettin’ it.”

These two men had never met before, so neither knew the other’s temperament or sore spots. Yet Kavanagh seemed to have an uncanny knack for irritating everyone, and Dean was quickly to prove no exception. Kavanagh looked over the device Dean was working on and the method Dean was using to fix it and scowled. “That’s a very delicate piece of Ancient technology....” He paused, waiting for Dean’s name.

“Jones,” Dean lied. “I know that.”

“You can’t treat it like... like it’s a car!”

Dean replied in Goa’uld. Radek didn’t want to know what he’d said, but he could guess that the Czech phrases running through his own mind were probably close equivalents.

“No, no, you are _doing it wrong!_ Where the hell did you get your PhD, out of a box of Cracker Jacks?”

Dean straightened to look Kavanagh in the eye, and Radek could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. “It may have escaped your notice,” Dean said in a tone that rivaled Rodney at his snarkiest, “that I’m the only person in this room who _doesn’t_ have a PhD. In fact, I dropped out of high school to fight monsters that are worse than Wraith. So I don’t need you telling me that I’m doing it wrong. I’m _doing_ it, and that’s what matters.”

Kavanagh scoffed. “Earth doesn’t have monsters.”

“Yeah? Tell that to the mom whose daughter got hooked on _Twilight_ , only to be turned by a real vampire. Better yet, why don’t you go feed yourself to one and get the hell out of my way?” And Dean pointedly went back to work with music suddenly blaring from the lab’s PA system.

It took Radek a moment to place the tune: “You’re No Good” by Linda Ronstadt. He couldn’t be sure whether it was playing at Dean’s request or was a comment by Lantea, but he suddenly had a bittersweet flashback to his childhood—a homemade radio and a tape recorder kept hidden and passed among the children in the neighborhood, the radio being strong enough to pick up East German radio on Saturdays when they played Western rock music to prove how _decadent_ and _awful_ the West was. It had even gotten Radio Free Europe on a good day, more frequently later in the ’80s. He’d hardly dared hope then that he’d even have the freedom to choose his own music, never mind the freedoms he’d gained after the Velvet Revolution and the even greater freedoms he had here in Atlantis....

“What did you say your name was?” Kavanagh asked suspiciously.

Dean didn’t look up. “Jones. John Paul Jones.”

“Your parents must be Revolutionary War historians.”

Dean snorted, and the music changed to Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused,” which aptly described the look on Kavanagh’s face. Radek had heard that Kavanagh had been on personal leave in April and May of the previous year and had thus missed all of the Apocalypse-thwarting panic he would have been privy to had he been at his post on the _Daedalus_. It still surprised Radek somewhat that Kavanagh wouldn’t have overheard enough gossip to know who he was talking to.

Finally, Kavanagh’s annoyance at being ignored won out over his confusion. “Look, you cretin—”

The volume of the music increased, and Dean yelled, “What? Can’t hear you, music’s too loud!”

“He bothering you, Dean?” Sam suddenly called from the door.

The music turned down a bit. “Yeah. Hey, this guy remind you of anyone, Sammy?”

Kavanagh found himself on the receiving end of one of Sam’s long, searching stares, which would be unsettling enough for anyone—the man was Ronon Dex’s size, after all—even without knowing who Sam was, what he knew, what he’d been through, and what he could do as a result of being former Tok’ra and of having to hone his powers in order to escape from Hell. But the coward paled and squirmed as if he held a guilty secret.

“Yeah, he does,” Sam finally stated. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was the same guy.”

“S-same guy?” Kavanagh stuttered. “Look, I don’t know you....”

“ _Christo_ ,” Dean muttered quietly, which earned him a nervous glance from Kavanaugh.

Sam huffed, and the corner of his mouth turned up. “Like I said, I know you’re not him. Not only are you not possessed—which I already knew, Dean, but thanks—he’s dead. We killed him four years ago.”

Kavanagh’s face turned even paler. “Whu-who?”

“Pride. Chief of the demons representing the Seven Deadly Sins.”

“Was that really four years ago?” Dean asked idly, still not looking away from his work.

Sam thought for a moment. “Devil’s Gate was 2007, it’s 2011... yeah, four years.”

“Damn. Lot of water under a lot of bridges since then.”

Sam’s smile grew. “That’s one way to put it.”

“Dude, shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t have to, and do I have to remind you what else started with that hunt?”

“ _Dean_.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry.”

“Want me to get rid of him?”

Kavanagh looked ready to faint. “Zelenka, who are these people?”

“I told you,” Dean replied. “I’m John Paul Jones, and that’s Robert Plant.”

Sam barked a laugh. “Better known to the rest of the galaxy as Sam and Dean Winchester.”

Kavanagh did faint at that, but Sam telekinetically caught him before he could hit the ground and carried him over to a chair out of the way.

Dean did look up at that. “Did he seriously....”

“Yes,” Radek sighed. “He does not respond to pressure very well. We are lucky that it does not happen more often.”

Both brothers laughed, and Dean got back to work while Sam stood guard over Kavanagh. Dean had just finished and checked the device’s function with Radek when:

“Dean,” said a gravelly voice that wasn’t Sam’s.

Radek jumped, but Dean looked at the newcomer and frowned in concern. “Cas? What’s up?”

Castiel stared at Dean without blinking and began to raise his hand. “We need your help.”

“Hey! Whoa!” cried Dean, ducking away from the fingers Castiel was raising to his forehead. “It doesn’t work like that anymore, Cas. We gotta brief Woolsey.”

Castiel let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine.”

And with a snap of the angel’s fingers, Atlantis’ senior staff were in the conference room with the Winchesters, swearing in shock.

“I told you we’d have to explain,” Gabriel said from the video screen, and it was only then that anyone realized that the Stargate was active. How the angels had managed to create the wormhole without setting off the unscheduled activation alarm was beyond Radek, though he suspected Rodney would want him to run a diagnostic to find out. Another glance at the video screen showed that the SGC’s briefing room was full of equally dazed officers and senior civilian staff—aside from Teal’c, who looked his usual unflappable self.

Dean muttered something uncomplimentary about angels.

“We cannot waste time,” Castiel stated. “The planet may already be under attack.”

“What planet?” almost everyone asked at the same time.

Gabriel shot Castiel a warning look. “Long story short, Hell is in chaos, largely because _you_ muttonheads,” he mock-glared at Sam and Dean, “killed off most of the senior staff and most of the ones who are left can’t agree on who’s Luci’s favorite. Some of the more enterprising demons have hooked up with the Lucian Alliance to try staking a claim on another planet. That would be disturbing enough were it not for the fact that according to Raphael, the planet they’ve chosen happens to be the one where Dishon and Salim have been working undercover to undermine a Lucian Alliance stronghold— _and_ it’s an Icarus-type planet,” he concluded, glancing over at Lt. Gen. Jack O’Neill.

O’Neill swore. “They’re after _Destiny_.”

“Possibly,” Gabriel cautioned. “But there is also a fairly substantial human population on that planet. Considering that the last two planets used to dial _Destiny_ went critical within minutes, my guess is that they won’t attempt to dial until they’ve had their fun creating Hell on... what’s it called, Vihanta?”

“Yes,” Castiel replied.

“Vihanta—that’s Finnish for _verdant_ ,” Daniel Jackson noted. “Sounds like an Asgard-protected race... why would they be on a planet claimed by Thanos?”

“It doesn’t matter, Daniel,” O’Neill snapped. “What matters is keeping it out of the demons’ hands. Winchesters, I want you Earth-side _now_.”

Castiel transported them before they could even get out a “Yes, sir,” and the Gate shut down.

Radek sighed and wondered how in the world his life had gotten so much stranger in the last year.

* * *

“How sure are you that Raphael’s on the level?” Dean asked as the angels escorted him, Sam, and SG-15 to the locker room to suit up. Three other five-person teams were joining the strike force, but the Winchesters were accompanying 15. “I mean, he could have delayed this info on purpose.”

“Conditions have changed in Heaven in the last year, Dean,” Cas replied. “Gabriel and I have persuaded Raphael not to resume the attempt to force the Apocalypse back on track. The delay was not intentional. Raphael’s informant was unable to get the information we needed without following the demons onto a Lucian Alliance ship, and by the time he learned the full extent of the danger, he was trapped in hyperspace. He informed us as soon as he could.”

“How many demons are we talking about?” Sam asked.

Gabriel shook his head. “Azrael wasn’t sure. Maybe twenty in the initial attack, more once they had a beachhead. It’s hard to tell how many factions there are and how many legions in each; most of the fighting’s going on Downstairs, and with the time dilation, any news that gets to us is already years out of date unless it’s about demons who are already topside. And before you ask, no, we can’t come with you this time. The less they know about how much we know, the better.”

But Dean was still stuck on Heaven’s politics. “Wait, wait, wait. Cas, Dishon said you guys had your hands full last summer.”

“It is difficult to estimate how much time passed on Earth while we were attending to matters in Heaven,” Cas stated with a shrug. “But we didn’t need to do more than talk to get Raphael to yield. Now, convincing him to give up on the idea altogether took more time, and some of his more determined supporters, like Naomi and Virgil, required reassignment and other forms of persuasion.”

“You mean Bible camp?”

“No. Only one who is truly in league with Lucifer deserves such treatment. So far we have found none, only those whose contempt for humanity has blinded them to Father’s true will. They are now in positions where they will learn but neither do harm nor come to harm.”

Dean nodded. “That’s good.”

“Yes, and it looks like less severe methods have been effective. We’ve been able to avoid the civil war I feared might result from our opposition to Raphael.”

Both Sam and Dean heaved a sigh of relief at that.

Gabriel nodded. “So yeah, basically, any angel you meet now is relatively trustworthy. At least until we can get Hell’s civil war dealt with. Then... well, we’ll have to see.”

“You’ll have to see?” the Winchesters chorused.

Gabriel conjured up a Magic 8-Ball and held it out for the brothers to see the plastic triangle declaring _Reply hazy – Try again_. “You mooks killed the only script we had. And that’s a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but unless and until I hear from Dad, I can only see so far ahead. Or, well, maybe Atropos or Chronos, but I don’t know how likely any of the Greeks are to help out right now.”

“Hey, Winchester,” called the major who was in command of SG-15, holding up a 28-round magazine for his USAS-12. “We got salt rounds in these. We need anything else?”

The brothers looked at each other and shrugged. “Not unless you’ve got some kind of full-auto spray pack for holy water,” Dean replied.

“Coming,” called Siler, who was hauling in a cart full.

The Winchesters laughed. “Okay, look,” said Sam. “We should probably set this up more or less like a WWII engineer squad, with each person armed differently—one holy water pack, one shotgun with salt rounds, two P-90s, one M-4. If we’re looking at both demons and Lucian Alliance—”

“You are,” Gabriel confirmed.

“—then it’s likely to be extremely hard to tell which attackers you can kill and which you can’t, unless the demons’ eyes have turned.”

“But getting shot with rock salt still hurts like hell as a human,” Dean noted, “and getting hit in the face with a stream of water’ll slow you down, too. So don’t discriminate.”

“Yeah. Just throw everything at everyone, and you should be okay.”

Gabriel looked around. “Oh, and—” He snapped his fingers. “You each have an extra dog tag now with an anti-possession charm on it. In case the demons smoke out, you’ll be less likely to pick up unwanted passengers.”

A few of the newer recruits on the other away teams were starting to look really weirded out at this point. “Is he serious, sir?” one of them even whispered to the major.

The major gave him The Look. “Evans, if you can’t handle being pinned to the wall by a possessed IOA agent, I’ll have Landry reassign you to Washington.”

The new kids visibly stifled their qualms and finished suiting up. Gabriel snapped his fingers again, more quietly this time, and saved Sam and Dean the trouble of doing likewise. Dean checked his belt and found the demon-killing knife sheathed just behind his holstered M1911. He nodded his thanks to Gabriel, who shrugged.

Then Cas handed him a piece of paper with a sigil drawn on it. “If you see this mark, break it. It’s most likely to be somewhere near the Stargate; the demons will place it as quickly as they can.”

Dean frowned. “This looks kind of like that trap Alastair had Tessa in. Reaper-proofing?”

“More or less. It will bind the Reapers and prevent them from taking the souls.”

Dean nodded and handed the paper to Sam, who studied it and showed it to the team leaders.

One of Evans’ teammates cleared his throat and spoke up. “Uh, ’scuse me, sirs... why would they want to stop the Reapers?”

“That,” said Gabriel, “is something for you to hear from the Tok’ra— _after_ you save the planet.”

“One last question,” said Dean. “How sure are we that the demons will come through the Gate and not by ship?”

Gabriel and Cas exchanged a look. “We’re not,” Gabriel confessed. “The Lucian Alliance is short enough on ships that we’re assuming they won’t risk losing one if Vihanta goes critical dialing _Destiny_. But if a demon’s in command, that may not matter.”

Dean’s thoughts on the matter were best expressed in Goa’uld.

“Listen, kid, we’re pretty much flying blind here ourselves. You want to stand here cursing your lack of intel, or you want to go save some lives?”

“Can’t I do both?” Dean shot back as the strike force started moving toward the Gateroom.

* * *

Vihanta, it turned out, was very aptly named. The grass was _emerald_ green—seriously, it looked about like Dean had always imagined Ireland would look in person. Leftover memories from Dishon told him there were vast tracts of orchards and farmland beyond the town that lay in front of them, as well as a number of other villages beyond those, each a day or two on foot from the others. The anti-Reaper sigil wasn’t visible anywhere, and given the state of the grass, it didn’t look like anything had been through the Gate on foot that day. Everything looked quiet and peaceful.

So naturally, Dean was on edge.

Sam was, too, and as soon as the wormhole shut down, he directed everyone else to a safe spot and quickly scorched a devil’s trap around the Gate. “That should buy us some time, anyway,” he said once he’d finished. “ _If_ they come only through the Gate and _if_ they’re plain old stunt demons, this will hold them long enough to be exorcised. What happens then depends on whether the demons are possessing civilians or Lucian Alliance members.”

The major ran through the Enochian exorcism with the other teams and then assigned two teams, composed mainly of Marines, to watch the Gate while the rest of the group went into town. As they walked, though, Dean’s internal alarms kept blaring that something was wrong, and he finally figured out why. While some worlds genuinely didn’t have birds or birdlike wildlife, Vihanta did. But Dean wasn’t hearing any birdsong.

“Cas was right,” he murmured to Sam. “Something’s already here.”

Sam nodded as he looked around warily. “Question is....”

“What.”

“And how many.”

“And where,” the major chimed in.

“Now, that is one thing we won’t need to worry about,” Dean replied. “These guys usually don’t have the sense God gave a grasshopper. You’d be noticeable enough just from the uniform, but me and Sam could be in full Tok’ra gear and still be a magnet for every demon in a fifty-mile radius. They’ll come to us.”

“The Lucian Alliance base is three towns west of here,” Sam noted. “Fifty troops, one XO, one CO. It’s mostly been black market, weapons smuggling, and espionage up to now, maybe some low-grade Mafia-type extortion and such locally. But... I... _think_ there’s some kind of major festival coming up in the next day or two—maybe today—that draws everyone in from the outlying villages. So whatever’s going to go down, it’ll happen here.”

“Uh, sir?” Evans ventured.

“They were Tok’ra for a while last year,” the major interrupted before Evans could ask his actual question. “You want to know how those memories work, you just ask Col. Carter when we get back.”

Evans shut up.

The sense of wrongness grew all the more oppressive as they got to the town. The Vihantans were out and about, which was something of a relief, but there definitely wasn’t a festival atmosphere about the place. People looked subdued, even scared. And some of those who noticed the arrival of Tau’ri with guns looked a little relieved.

When a man finally did speak to the team, the major asked, “We understood there was some kind of festival today. Did something happen?”

The man fumbled a bit for an answer. “Y-n-well, i-it begins after dark. Most everyone who was planning to come is already here. It’s... it’s just....”

“You’ve got a bad feeling,” Sam supplied.

The man looked a little relieved. “Yes. That’s it exactly. Nothing I can pinpoint, but we all seem to be feeling it.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. We feel it, too. Listen, has anything weird happened today? Like, somebody sick who should have died but hasn’t?”

The man frowned, but a woman behind him turned and hurried over to them. “How did you know?” she whispered.

“We’ve seen that kind of magic at work before.”

“I... thought the Tau’ri didn’t believe in magic.”

“Some of us do, ma’am,” Dean replied. “Your husband?”

“My son. He had a terrible fall yesterday, cracked his skull, and the doctor thought he would most likely die. But about an hour ago he suddenly woke up and asked for food. I would think it was a miracle, but—”

“That was about the time when the bad feeling started.”

Both locals nodded.

Sam pulled the paper Cas had given them out of his pocket. “Have either of you seen this sign drawn or carved anywhere here in town within the last hour?”

Neither the man nor the woman recognized it.

“What about people from three towns west? Have you noticed any of the men with weapons?”

The woman shook her head, but the man frowned. “I think I’ve seen a few near the square.”

Just then the team’s radios chirped. “Someone’s dialing in,” the captain of SG-23 reported from the Gate.

“Don’t fire until you see the blacks of their eyes,” the major radioed back.

“Understood, sir.”

Then the major looked back at the now-confused locals. “We’ll go check out the square. Thank you.”

“The... _blacks_ of their eyes?” the man repeated.

“We’re expecting company. Their eyes are completely black.”

“Oh.” The man didn’t look much less confused, but at least he understood that it wasn’t just some weird Earth saying. “Well, then, may the gods grant you success.”

The team nodded and headed toward the square.

Sam was outright jittery by the time they got there. “It’s here,” he murmured to Dean. “Can’t tell where, but....”

“Feels like Hell?” Dean supplied.

Sam nodded.

Dean nodded back. He wasn’t as sensitized to that kind of thing as Sam always had been thanks to the demon blood, never mind now that Sam had physically spent more than twice as long in Hell as Dean’s soul had. But he could still feel whatever was bothering Sam, and it did remind him of Hell.

“You two find the sigil, then,” said the major. “We’ll keep our eyes peeled for the Alliance.”

“Yes, sir,” the brothers chorused.

As the rest of the team fanned out across the square, Dean let Sam follow his senses like an overgrown bloodhound. But it took maybe thirty seconds of seemingly casual strolling before he felt Sam grab his arm telekinetically.

“Dean,” he said, pointing toward a monument near the middle of the square. There was a man leaning against it, seemingly idle—but Dean vaguely recognized him from Dishon’s memories.

“Let’s go,” said Dean.

The brothers naturally fell into step with each other as they made their way toward the monument. The man lounging against the monument saw them coming but didn’t move.

“Can I help you fellas with something?” he drawled as they walked up to him.

“Need to inspect this monument,” Dean declared.

“Ain’t nothin’ special about this old thing. Nothin’ for the Tau’ri to be interested in, anyway.”

“Step aside, please.”

The man spat toward their shoes, though Sam deflected the spit wad, and it landed in the dirt.

“I said step aside,” Dean repeated.

“Make me.”

Sam didn’t move, just shoved the man aside telekinetically. And there, where his back had been pressed against the base, was the anti-Reaper sigil, newly carved. Dean quickly drew his handgun and shot a chip out of the rock, enough to mar the line and break the sigil.

And all hell broke loose.

“Death gliders!” SG-23 radioed just as the Alliance troops scattered around the square opened fire on the SG troops.

Civilians screamed and ran for cover. The SG teams returned fire on the Alliance troops, only to have their attention split when the Alliance’s stolen Goa’uld fighters screamed past, strafing the square. And seconds after that, the ring platform that Dean hadn’t even seen in the middle of the square activated, and then they were up to their ears in demons and Alliance troops. As fast as one group went down under a hail of rock salt shells and streams of holy water, another ringed in from what Dean had to assume was an Alliance mothership. Sam lashed out with all his powers, and Dean fought with the knife as best he could, but despite their best efforts to keep their backs to the monument, the fighting swept them apart. Dean found himself retreating toward a building at the edge of the square that had swinging doors like an old-school saloon.

No sooner had he registered it than two zat blasts shot out of the darkened doorway, sped past him, and took down the Alliance soldier closest to him.

Dean made a break for that doorway, still firing his P-90. The person with the zat continued to give him covering fire until he got inside. He could hear civilians screaming and sobbing behind him, but he didn’t pay that much attention until he paused to reload, at which point the person with the zat turned.

“Stay down,” a distorted female voice ordered sharply. “And stay _quiet_. You’re less likely to get hurt that way.”

Dean’s head snapped up. “Dishon?”

Dishon, still blended with Dr. Mary Adamson, shot him a wry smile. “Hello, Dean.”

Dean quickly finished reloading, but before he could say anything else, a staff weapon blast took out one of the windows. Together, Dean and Dishon turned back to the door and started shooting down the next wave of attackers.

“Any casualties?” Dean yelled over the gunfire.

“I don’t know,” Dishon replied. “I’ve been too busy to find out.”

“This place have a back door?”

“I think so.”

The conversation paused there until the current wave was stopped. “Okay,” Dean called over his shoulder, “everybody out the back way. GO!”

“And stay low!” Dishon added as the civilians started to rise from their hiding places under tables and such.

Barely had the last of the civilians made it out of the main room when the next wave arrived. There were demons in this batch, some of which came in through the broken window. Dean and Dishon were driven back behind the bar, but Dishon had apparently stashed a shotgun with salt rounds back there, and she bellowed an exorcism over the gunfire that sent the demons back to Hell while Dean made sure the Alliance troops they were wearing followed them.

During the pause after this wave, Dean and Dishon dropped down behind the bar to stay under cover. “You okay?” Dean asked.

Dishon nodded, then let Mary step forward. “Oh, Dean, thank God,” she breathed. “We couldn’t get away to send word to anyone that this attack was coming.”

“Thank Azrael. The angels were onto ’em.”

“All units, report,” the major barked through the radio before Mary could reply.

And all units did report, to Dean’s relief. A few of the Marines were wounded, none seriously. Sam had found Salim and his new host, Sgt. Peter Brzinsky, and they were planning to head up to the troop transport ship to try to take out the last of the demons.

“The Gate is secure,” SG-23 reported, “but there’s no telling how long it’ll stay that way.”

Dean opened a pocket in his tac vest and pulled out a fresh magazine. “Gonna get you out of here,” he whispered to Mary.

“Dean, wait.” While Dean ejected the empty magazine, Mary slipped a data crystal into his opened pocket and closed it. “If anything happens, get that to the SGC.”

Dean slammed the new magazine into place. “I _said_ , we’re gonna get you out of here. Dishon wouldn’t let us leave Gabriel; I’ll be damned if I leave you.”

“But Dean—”

Whatever Mary’s objection was going to be, it was cut off by renewed gunfire.

There was no respite between waves after that. Even though Dean and Mary fought back with everything they had and took down so many attackers Dean lost count, one of the humans had a staff weapon and fired it into the bar, setting it ablaze and forcing Dean and Mary to retreat out the back door. Mary used her hand device to set fire to a barrel of ale to cover their tracks; that stopped the humans, but it didn’t stop one last trick on the demons’ part: a hellhound. Dean didn’t know it was there until he heard Mary scream as it attacked her. For lack of a better option, Dean threw the demon-killing knife at the hound, which howled and fell in a burst of flame. Mary summoned the strength to use the hand device to get it off of her.

As radio traffic revealed that the battle was over and that a couple of SG-28’s members had died, Dean retrieved the knife from where it was stuck seemingly in mid-air, then crouched beside Mary, checking her wounds. But there was no way Dishon could repair them in time to stop her from bleeding out, and all three of them knew it. They locked eyes for one despairing moment.

And Dean knew what he had to do.

“Goodbye, Mary,” he whispered, quickly lifting her head and shoulders and leaning over her as if for a last kiss. But Dishon couldn’t afford to wait and jumped before their lips could touch.

This time Dean didn’t gag. And this time the blending felt like an embrace.

 _Missed you, buddy_ , he thought as he felt the Tok’ra’s mind connect with his own.

 _As did I you_ , Dishon replied. _I am only sorry we must reunite like this._

_Yeah. Me too._

By the time Dishon got Dean’s eyes focused again, Mary was dead.

And seconds later Dean sensed Sam coming up behind him, but the startled gasp was followed by a “Dishon?!” so distorted that neither man nor Tok’ra needed to ask what had happened to his brother.

“It could not be helped, Salim,” Dishon replied, gently setting down the corpse. “Dean got to us as quickly as he could.”

“As did Sam to us,” said Salim. “But we had become separated, and a demon stabbed Peter through the heart before Sam could kill it. I had to jump, and Sam had to catch me with his telekinesis.” He sighed. “It’s almost as bad as....”

“Carthage.”

A beat passed. “I was going to say Revanna, but you’re right. It is like Carthage. Fewer are dead, but even so.”

Dishon sighed and stood, finally turning to face his brothers. “Have you burned the others?”

Salim nodded Sam’s head. “SG-15 is waiting for us at the Gate. The other teams will stay to ensure the site is secure.”

Dishon gave Mary’s body a final farewell glance before walking away, and Salim set it ablaze before following.

Neither the Winchesters nor their symbiotes said anything on the walk back to the Gate, and both Sam and Dean were content to let Salim and Dishon remain in control. SG-15 didn’t say anything, either, as they dialed the Gate and sent through their IDC, and the group filed through the Gate in silence.

Landry was waiting at the foot of the ramp when they returned and seemed to notice the difference in Sam and Dean’s posture. “What happened?” he demanded.

Dishon found himself putting on one of Dean’s smirks in spite of himself. “Well, General, I believe the Tau’ri saying is: ‘Oops, I did it again.’”

And Salim couldn’t suppress a snicker at Landry’s stare.


	3. Chapter 2: Soul Man

“Souls,” said Salim once everyone was in the conference room and the initial sitrep had been delivered. “It is all about the souls.”

“How do you mean?” O’Neill asked.

“As Gabriel told you, Hell is in chaos. Few remaining demons have the inherent power needed to impose their rule on the others; they require the energy of souls to augment their own. But there are not enough non-demonic souls in Hell to support all the claimants or even to break the impasse. Some have begun searching for a route to Purgatory. Others feared that to do so would attract too much attention, especially from us. But the demon who possessed Mr. Coolidge had another idea: collecting souls at their source before they could be claimed by anyone else—Reapers included. And he and his followers are not particular as to what kind of souls they take. No sentient life form is safe—Goa’uld, Tok’ra, Unas, the Pegasus Asgard, Wraith, even the creatures encountered by _Destiny_.”

“They may even attempt to force ascended beings back to a plane where those souls can be harvested,” Dishon added.

“Is Vihanta secure?” Landry asked.

“For now. But it may not remain so long. There are few Icarus-class planets known to the Alliance that are stable enough even to attempt dialing _Destiny_ without attracting the attention of the Tau’ri. Vihanta is both the most stable and the only inhabited planet, making it ideal for both the Alliance and the demons.”

“Do you have Gate addresses for the others?”

Dishon handed the data crystal to Landry. “That is all the information we had gathered during our time on Vihanta.”

Landry nodded. “Good. We’ll start working on securing these sites.”

“That should halt any attempt to enter the ship through the Stargate,” Salim allowed. “But that is not the only point of entry for _Destiny_ from this galaxy.”

O’Neill frowned. “You think the demons will try to use the communication stones?”

“As a last resort, yes. Of course, neither we nor they have any idea whether demons can ride the host’s consciousness across such a link, but they may well attempt it.”

O’Neill nodded. “All right. We’ll beef up security at Homeworld Command. Now, you mentioned the Pegasus races. Have there been any attempts to dial into Atlantis?”

Sam stepped forward. “No, sir, and we don’t think they’ll try. Odds are they’ll aim to find a ZPM and dial from the far edge of the Milky Way to the near edge of Pegasus. But I couldn’t begin to guess whether they’d try for the planet that was part of the Gate Bridge or some other one.”

“Or which other one,” Dishon agreed. “Yet they must know that the Pegasus Asgard don’t use the Stargates and confine themselves to dead worlds.”

“So they’d be aiming for a planet where they could get ships.”

“Wraith, Genii, or Travelers.”

“Most likely. Unless there’s more of RepliWeir’s information on other cultures in the SGC’s Earthside system than we know. Hell’s limited to what Coolidge would have access to, and the Coalition doesn’t have too many worlds that are that technologically advanced.”

O’Neill blinked. “RepliWeir?”

“Dean’s term,” Sam and Dishon chorused.

“Oh.—Speaking of Dean....”

Dishon sighed. “He is awake and aware, but he is taking Mary’s death quite hard. He lost a dear friend on Earth the same way, not quite two years ago. And he blames himself, though none of us could have known about the hellhound.”

“Dishon is right, Dean,” said Cas. “Azrael had made no mention of hellhounds. I might have come with you if he had.”

Dean finally came forward at that. “C’mon, Cas. You know it wouldn’t have been smart. Gabriel said as much.”

“Do you really think I would have let you face hellhounds alone if I had known, after what happened in Carthage?”

They locked eyes for a long moment. Then the corners of Dean’s mouth twitched upward a little. “Thanks, dude.”

O’Neill cleared his throat. “Look, you two—four—have some leave coming. Why don’t you take the weekend to go to Sioux Falls and get some rest? If Singer’s got any intel, great, but otherwise, let us work out where to go from here.”

“You sure?” Dean began.

But Gabriel cut his voice off before he could object further, though Sam wasn’t sure whether the objection was going to involve ‘being fine’ or having more intel to offer, neither of which would be true. Instead, once Dean turned an annoyed glare to the Trickster archangel, Gabriel said, “He’s sure, and I don’t want to hear it. Just nod your head and say ‘Thank you,’ Dean.”

That provoked a mischievous sparkle in Dean’s eyes as he nodded, and when Gabriel restored his voice, he parroted, “Thank you, Dean.”

Gabriel slapped a hand over his eyes, and Teal’c actually laughed.

“Walked into that one, didn’t I, big guy?” Gabriel groaned.

“Indeed,” Teal’c replied, still chuckling.

O’Neill was trying not to laugh himself and was about to fail. “Get outta here,” he ordered.

The Winchesters saluted, and the meeting broke up. Cas flitted back to Atlantis to get the brothers’ gear before the Gate shut down. He returned just as Sam, Dean, and Gabriel stepped out of the briefing room, at which point Gabriel snapped his fingers. And suddenly brothers and angels were standing outside Bobby’s house.

Sam sighed. “Face the Music, Part One.”

“We’re not s’posed to be home until Thanksgiving,” Dean agreed, sounding a little plaintive. “He’s gonna know something’s wrong.”

“When do you idjits show up when somethin’ _ain’t_ wrong?” Bobby said gruffly from behind them, and Sam found himself being pulled around into a hug. “Hell, boy, makin’ m’hair stand on end,” he added into Sam’s shoulder before releasing him. “And Salim’s back in there, ain’t he?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, and sorry about the EMF.”

“Save it.” Bobby hugged Dean next. “Aw, hell, son, what _is_ wrong?” he asked as he backed away. “And don’t you dare say you’re fine; ain’t felt you shake like that since—”

“Since Carthage?” Dean offered.

Bobby looked around at all of them. “Get in this house. Too damn hot to stand around outside yakkin’.”

The brothers sighed in unison and followed Bobby into the house, trailed by the angels. Then Bobby got out the whiskey, exchanged greetings with the Tok’ra, and made _Cas_ tell the whole story. Gabriel filled in some commentary, as did Sam, but Dean didn’t even bother to drink anything. He was clearly sliding into shock again.

Bobby nodded slowly once the tale was told, then sighed. “Well, I ain’t got much for you. Startin’ to see some crazy monster activity—had three wraith reports last week—but that might have more to do with this bunch that’s goin’ after Purgatory. But I can check with Rufus and a few other friends, see what they know.”

Gabriel nodded. “Yeah, Purgatory could be a problem if they were actually able to break through. There’s stuff stashed in there that even _I’ve_ never heard of. But that’s not a matter for the SGC.”

“Well, we’re here for the weekend,” said Sam. “Anything you need my help with, Bobby? Any research I can do?”

Bobby shrugged. “Sure I can find somethin’. Dean?”

Dean looked kind of lost until Dishon evidently whispered a suggestion that made his eyes light up. “Actually? I think I’m gonna go for a drive. Haven’t seen my car in way too long.”

Sam smiled at that.

“You want to come, Sammy?”

 _Say no_ , Salim whispered suddenly. _If Lisa still lives here, I think I know what Dishon is up to._

 _She does_ , Sam thought back, catching on, and cleared his throat. “Nah. Not right now. I know you three have a lot to catch up on.”

Dean blinked. “Three?”

“You, Dishon, and the car.”

Dean snorted but smiled anyway.

Bobby tossed him the keys. “You see Lisa, tell her I still owe her for the meatloaf.”

Dean looked a little bewildered at that. “O-kay. Later.” And he left.

“Meatloaf?” Sam, Gabriel, and Cas asked at the same time once the door was closed.

Bobby shrugged. “Had to remind him somehow, didn’t I?”

Sam laughed.

* * *

Lisa was just walking in her front door when she heard the rumble of the Impala pull up behind her. She paused just inside the door and turned, expecting Bobby, and startled when Dean, still in uniform, got out of the car and jogged up the walk.

“Hey, Lis!” he called.

“Dean! What—I thought you didn’t get leave until Thanksgiving!”

“We got a weekend pass,” he replied as he got to the doorstep. “Sam’s fine, says hello. And Bobby said to tell you he still owes you for the meatloaf.”

“Oh... that’s... okay.” She had no clue what that was supposed to mean, though it might just have been Bobby’s way of making sure Dean would come see her. But as she looked him over, something felt... off, like he was trying too hard to be cheerful on her behalf. She felt her smile start to fade, and his dimmed slightly as well.

Embarrassed by her scrutiny, he ducked his head and rubbed his neck. “So, um....”

“Dean? What happened?”

He looked at her for a moment, seeming a little lost for words. Then his eyes closed and his head dropped forward briefly, as if he’d fallen asleep for a split second—a gesture she suddenly remembered from the summer before Sam’s return, one she hadn’t seen since—and when he opened his eyes again, something had _shifted_ in them, like the soul looking out wasn’t Dean anymore.

“Hello, Lisa,” said Dean’s voice, which sounded as if he were speaking through one of those voice-distortion toys Ben’s friends used to have.

She couldn’t suppress a startled squeak.

“I regret that we were never formally introduced while I was living with you before,” the weird voice continued, and the expression on Dean’s face matched the sentiment coming from his lips. “But at the time, you lacked the clearance to know of my existence.”

And something clicked. “You’re... the alien?” she hazarded. She probably should feel more shocked, or at least sound more shocked, but knowing what she did now about the previous summer grounded her somehow.

“I am Tok’ra,” he nodded. “This is my true voice. My name is Dishon. And I am very partial to your apple crumb cake,” he added with a grin that was like Dean’s but also different somehow.

Which explained why he was always asking for it before Sam came back but didn’t afterward. Lisa managed a small smile even as her memories of that summer began sorting themselves into _That was Dean_ , _That was Dishon_ , _I’m not sure who that was_....

Dishon’s smile faded slightly. “Dean wishes you to know that though we both care for you, _I_ have never considered you more than a very good friend.”

“So when we... ah....”

“I was present, but I was never in control. Dean loves you too much for that. In fact, I was usually dormant to give him privacy.” He paused. “My mate was killed several years ago by a Goa’uld spy. I am not yet ready to give my heart again. But I am very glad that you return Dean’s feelings for you.”

She nodded once, then shook her head. “I... I’m sorry, I’m just... seeing Dean possessed again....”

“It’s not possession, Lisa. I am a symbiote, nothing more. We share this body, and I give him no powers other than health, long life, and the ability to use certain technology. If we may come in, I will show you my true face.”

She hesitated, but something told her that if Dishon had meant her harm, he would have had ample opportunity to hurt her when she didn’t even know he was in Dean the first time. So she took a deep breath and stepped aside. He walked into the living room, looking around cautiously, and stopped to face her where his face couldn’t be seen from any of the windows. She closed the door and followed but kept the couch between them.

“You must promise not to scream,” he said.

She swallowed hard and braced herself against the back of the couch. “Okay. I... I promise.”

Now, she had seen demons’ true forms before, when Meg and her minions had tried to attack the Braedens and Bobby and Gabriel and Castiel had shown up to defend them. The angels had killed Meg, but some of the lesser demons had fled their hosts. So Lisa was braced for smoke to come out of Dean’s mouth when it fell open. She wasn’t expecting the grey snaky thing that poked its head out and flared its gill fins. It quickly bobbed up and down and squeaked once as if waving hello, then retreated back into Dean’s mouth, which closed as his eyes flashed with light briefly.

“Dean’s face is much more handsome,” Dishon remarked with a wry smile.

That startled a laugh out of her. “I... I don’t understand. I thought Dean said you’d taken a new host.”

He nodded. “I had. In fact, I had not expected to see Dean or Sam ever again, though we had promised to write. But today demons attacked the planet where my brother and I were stationed. Somehow the angels got word and brought Sam and Dean back from Atlantis to aid us.”

“But... then why....”

“There was a hellhound,” he said quietly, his eyes sad.

She gasped. Dean had told her about the hellhound attack that killed his friend Jo a couple of years ago, so she didn’t need more details than that. “Is Dean okay?”

“No.” Then and only then did Dishon make any move toward her, but his eyes were deeply troubled. “No, he’s not okay at all. That’s why we’re here. He needs you, Lisa.”

She drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Can... can I....”

“I’ll go to sleep and leave you two in peace until time for us to return to Atlantis. You have my word. And you’ll know, believe me. I won’t hide my voice from you again.”

“Okay. Thanks, Dishon.”

“Goodbye, Lisa.” Then Dean’s head dropped forward again, and when it came back up, his stance changed, almost like Dean was trying to fold in on himself as he ran a hand over his nose and mouth. “Dammit, I should have warned you. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ll... I’ll go....” He started toward the door, looking absolutely crushed.

And suddenly Lisa didn’t care about Dishon anymore.

“No, Dean, wait.” She ran to cut him off. “Yes, you should have warned me, and yes, it’s gonna take some getting used to, but don’t you dare run off now.”

He looked down at her miserably. “I didn’t want to upset you like this.”

“Apology accepted.”

“I... I just....”

“Needed to see that I was okay?”

He nodded.

She stepped toward him. “Well, Ben’s at a friend’s house this weekend. So why don’t I show you just how okay I am?”

“Lis, you don’t have to do this,” he whispered. “If you’re not okay with Dishon—”

“Shhh.” She pulled his head down and kissed him. “I’ve missed you.”

His answering kiss was all Dean.

* * *

Monday morning arrived too soon for everyone. Ben had been overjoyed to come home Sunday night and find Dean there, but his deep disappointment that Dean wasn’t staying longer was mitigated by Lisa’s decision to see Dean and Sam off at the Gate this time. But O’Neill wanted an intergalactic briefing on this new demonic threat as early in the day on Monday as possible, so Dean arranged for Walter to give the Braedens the five-cent tour of Cheyenne Mountain while he, Sam, Bobby, and the angels were in the meeting.

Dean was so glad to have Dishon for backup when they got to the briefing room. Not only were the usual Homeworld Command brass present, including all of SG-1, but so were representatives of the Tok’ra High Council and the Tollan, leaders from half a dozen of the most populated and powerful Milky Way worlds, Master Bra’tac, a couple of Nox, a couple of Unas, and even a very shy Reole who’d been picked up by ship. And those were just the ones he could see. The briefing room in Atlantis was crammed, too. He could make out Elson and Dimas of Riva, representing the Coalition; Keras from M7G-677; Halling from New Athos; Ladon Radim of the Genii; and Larrin of the Travelers—but there were a bunch of other humans there whom Dean didn’t know, plus Todd, who was probably there to advise Woolsey on how to convince the Wraith that this was a problem.

 _I hate giving presentations_ , Dean confided to Dishon, feeling rather claustrophobic.

 _Courage, my friend_ , Dishon replied, giving him the mental equivalent of a shoulder squeeze. _Think of the many lives you will save_.

Once O’Neill and Woolsey had made all the necessary introductions, the first hour or so of the meeting was mainly a lecture on what demons are, what they can do, how to fight them, and so on. The three hunters switched off for that part. Then Gabriel and Cas took over to explain what the demons were up to and why it was a threat to everyone, with Salim and Dishon filling in what the Tok’ra knew as needed. The angels left out most of the history of the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t, much to Dean’s relief, and focused instead on the power vacuum because that seemed to be the part that other races would understand. Daniel had to translate quietly for the Unas, but most of the others looked like they were following along fairly well.

“Any questions?” Gabriel finally asked.

“This all sounds very disturbing,” said Ladon. “But we’ve never encountered these kinds of creatures in our galaxy. So how do we know you’re telling the truth?”

And suddenly there were with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host—um. Well, four more angels, anyway, standing behind Gabe and Cas and looking imperious. Quite a few people gasped, including one of the Tollan.

“Ladon Radim,” said one of the newcomers, a blonde. “Perhaps you would be so good as to inform Col. Sheppard which of your officers was behind the selection of Shiana of the Tribes of Santhal to the Coalition tribunal, knowing full well that she held a vendetta against Atlantis and would not be a just judge.”

Ladon’s eyes widened. “That—that wasn’t—”

“No, it was not your doing, but the officer in question did boast of his cleverness and drink to the demise of Atlantis in your presence. You did not join him in that toast, but you have not punished him for attempting to harm an ally.”

Ladon looked ready to fall through the floor.

“Rachel is one of our liaisons with the Pegasus garrison,” Gabriel explained. “Inias and Samandiriel are overseeing intelligence on the search for Purgatory, and Balthazar is working with Azrael and his garrison to monitor the activities of the Lucian Alliance.”

Ronon frowned. “I saw you. Two weeks ago, on Balar.”

Rachel nodded once. “We were investigating whether the Balarans and the Satedan refugees would be targeted for more than their souls. So far, of the Coalition worlds known to Atlantis last year, only that of the Genii appears to be of potential interest to the Lucian Alliance for its technology.”

“That said,” Sheppard noted, “once the demons and the Alliance get to this galaxy, they won’t be limited to what our people know. And if they get ships, they won’t be limited to worlds with a Stargate.”

“The Alliance does have ships,” Balthazar added, “but not the sort capable of crossing the intergalactic void. Most likely, they’ll cross by Stargate and then raid one of your planets. In the meantime, they’ve already begun targeting inhabited worlds in this galaxy, by Gate and by ship. Vihanta was the first, but it will most certainly not be the last.”

Lya, one of the Nox representatives, tilted her head a little. “I am not sure I understand the need for defense. Many of our worlds are at peace since the fall of the Ori and the Goa’uld. The Alliance is troublesome, but is the danger really so great?”

Dishon grumbled something uncomplimentary about pacifists to Dean. Dean privately agreed.

Master Bra’tac sat forward. “I hesitate to suggest this because I can well imagine the cost. But the Tok’ra have technology that allows memories to be projected for others to see.”

“We have been able to link a memory device to a holographic projector,” one of the Tok’ra councilors admitted. “We brought both in case they were needed.”

Bra’tac nodded, then paused before continuing. “Teal’c tells me that these brothers have been to the realm of the demons.”

Dean shook his head. “No, Bra’tac, you do not want to know. You lived through Erebus, and believe me, Hell is a million times worse.”

Bra’tac paled but didn’t back down. “I do not ask for my own sake, Dean Winchester. I am a warrior, of a people trained for war, and I have fought evil for many years. I need no persuasion. But there are those here who do not know such torment.”

“Dean,” Todd said gravely—and about as gently as a Wraith could possibly sound. “Show them your mother.”

Dean shook his head more vigorously, fighting tears. “No, Todd... don’t....”

Sam put a hand on his arm. “I’ll do it, Dean.”

“Sammy—”

“Yellow-Eyes showed me, remember? At Cold Oak?” Sam’s eyes didn’t look any less pained than Dean felt, but they had that determined edge to them... and Dean found himself remembering the way Sam looked right before he went back to shoot Madison. There was no way Sam was going to let Dean talk him out of doing this himself, and they both knew it.

O’Neill cleared his throat. “Winchester, why don’t you go check on your own guests while we go through this part?”

Bobby rubbed Dean’s back briefly, and Cas nodded. So Dean drew a ragged breath, nodded back, and left the room.

Samandiriel popped into the hall just long enough to say, “They’re touring the infirmary.”

Dean nodded his thanks, and Samandiriel went back to the briefing. Then Dean had Dishon take over, and Dishon got them down the hall and into the elevator before the Tok’ra could get the memory projector set up. Once the elevator was on its way up to 21, Dishon gave control back to Dean, who braced himself against the elevator door.

“Why do they ask, buddy?” he whispered brokenly. “Why do they always gotta ask?”

 _“It’s a very extraordinary scene / To those who don’t understand,”_ Dishon quoted. _Some things simply have to be seen to be believed._

“Nobody should have to.”

 _I know._ If Dishon had been driving, he would have sighed deeply. _I know._

Dean had pulled himself together by the time the elevator arrived, and he’d just stepped out of it when Walter, Ben, and Lisa turned the corner to head down to the commissary. So Dean asked Walter to let him know when he was needed back in the briefing room and took Ben and Lisa to the commissary for Jell-O and a breather.

“Havin’ fun?” he asked Ben as they rode the elevator back down.

Ben nodded. “They won’t let us see any of the cool stuff, though.”

“That’s ’cause the cool stuff is classified, dude.”

“It’s not like I’d tell anyone!”

“Right. _How_ many times have you told the story about the Changeling?”

“But that’s different! The guys in Sioux Falls know about zombies.”

“I know. I was there, remember?”

“When they attacked Uncle Bobby’s house?”

Dean blinked. “ _Uncle_ Bobby? Since when is he _Uncle_ Bobby?”

“Since the demon attack,” Lisa explained as they got out on 22. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Mind less if you’d come back with us,” Dean muttered, and she shot him a look that was equal parts amused and annoyed, so he didn’t press.

Armed with pie and Jell-O, the family headed back to one of the tables and had just set everything down when Lya and the Tollan woman who’d gasped at the angels’ arrival rushed in—through the _wall_. Ben and Lisa jumped, but Dean was more worried about the state the Tollan woman was in, sobbing hysterically into Lya’s shoulder as Lya tried to comfort her.

“Hey,” he said, abandoning his pie and jogging toward the aliens. “You guys okay?”

Lya looked up at him, her wild frizzy hair somehow seeming a lot less trippy and a lot more frazzled given the sorrow in her eyes. “You were right, Dean. Sam’s memories were more terrible than words. But I do not wish I had not asked, for I truly could not have understood otherwise. We have lived too long in peace to believe such evil could threaten us.”

Dean swallowed hard. “You know, you can set wards, use exorcisms. Don’t have to kill to defend yourselves.”

Lya nodded. “We are used to those who kill the body. That can be restored.”

“But not if you lose your soul.”

“No.” She turned her attention back to the Tollan woman. “No, let us avoid that.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“You are kind, but no, thank you.”

Feeling awkward, Dean went back to Ben and Lisa.

“Dean?” Lisa asked quietly. “What... how...”

Dean shook his head. “It’s classified.”

Evidently the Tollan woman’s sudden flight broke up the meeting, or at least the part O’Neill needed the hunters and angels for, because Dean had gotten only three bites into his pie before Bobby was sitting down on the other side of Ben. Gabe and Cas sat down on the other side of him, and while Teal’c checked on the other aliens, Sam sat down next to Dean, looking somewhat the worse for wear.

“Hey,” said Sam, glancing over at Lya. “They okay?”

“Hell with them,” Dean replied. “Are _you_ okay?”

Sam nodded a little. “The... device kinda... got away from me.”

“What’d they see?”

“Mom. And... Meg. And Jess. Maybe Carthage, maybe Famine. And... Hell. A little.”

Dean cursed under his breath in Goa’uld.

“Yeah.”

“I shut it down before it became dangerous, Dean,” Cas stated.

“Why’d you let it go that far?” Dean snapped.

Gabriel looked over at Lya as Teal’c came to join the other humans. “Like she said, they couldn’t have gotten the point otherwise. These people aren’t used to thinking in terms of spiritual danger, not when so many ‘gods’ turned out to be just another race of aliens. Wanton physical destruction is one thing. They can get that; they can defend against that, they think. But Hell is orders of magnitude different.”

“Son,” Bobby said before Dean could say anything else. “It’s done. Let it go.”

Dean sighed and gave Sam his Jell-O. Sam bumped his shoulder in thanks and ate.

Just about the time the family finished, Walter returned with the Tok’ra councilors. The one Dishon recognized as Erastus reached the table first. “I need to speak to Dishon and Salim,” he said.

Cursing inwardly, Dean stepped back, and Sam evidently did the same. “At your service, Master Erastus,” Salim said.

Erastus switched to Goa’uld, but Dean understood as if he spoke English. “Is there any information regarding the demon threat that you have not already given to us?”

“No, my lord,” Dishon replied in the same language. “The Tau’ri have given you a full copy of our report from Vihanta, and there is no more to add. You also have the deposition we gave on the Apocalypse upon our return last year, which includes all that the Tau’ri know of fighting demons.”

“Very well. We do not as yet have permanent hosts for you, but both the High Council and the Tau’ri are amenable to your remaining with your current hosts for the time being and returning with them to Atlantis. If there is information in the Atlantis database that may be of use in this fight, or if you intercept information from the Lucian Alliance, the Tau’ri have agreed to let you transmit it to us. Otherwise, you are to aid the Tau’ri in preparing the defense of the Pegasus Galaxy against the Lucian Alliance and the demons. When the current threat is over, we shall discuss the merits of new permanent hosts versus a long-term assignment to Atlantis.”

“Understood,” the brothers chorused, and Dean gave a mental sigh of relief. He really hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to Dishon so soon or to give up his post in Atlantis.

Erastus nodded once and switched back to English. “Gen. O’Neill wishes Mr. Singer to work with Dr. Jackson to prepare an instructional video to be shared with allied worlds. As for the two of you, it will take time to connect the Zero Point Module to the Stargate to allow you to depart, as the remaining delegations must return to their own worlds first. Col. Carter estimates that it will be ready sometime this afternoon.”

“Understood,” Salim replied.

“Understood,” Dishon echoed. “Thank you.”

Erastus nodded again, and the councilors left to follow Walter to the serving line.

“Does... that mean you’ll still be home for Thanksgiving?” Ben asked, having not followed the conversation at all.

Dishon just smiled and reached across the table to squeeze Ben’s hand. “We hope so, Ben. We hope so.”

* * *

The angels left after lunch, and with Bobby hard at work with Daniel on the video, Carter drove the Winchesters and Braedens to a nice park in Colorado Springs to hang out until it was time to go. The sunshine and fresh air did them all good, and Lisa made sure the conversation topics stayed light. The time still went too fast, and before Dean knew it, they were standing at the bottom of the Gate ramp, and he was kissing Lisa goodbye again.

It hurt to walk away when the wormhole connected. He really wished Lisa would agree to move to Atlantis with them—Bobby, too, for that matter, but Bobby had other hunters depending on him and couldn’t just leave.

But the pang couldn’t last for long, because Teyla and Torren were in the Gateroom when the Winchesters returned, and Teyla had that smile like she knew they were going to need some Torren hugs. Torren gasped and with a squeal of “DE-EE-EE-EE-EAN!” ran toward the brothers.

Dean dropped his bag and fell to one knee, arms outstretched. “Hey, TJ!”

Torren barreled into his arms for a laughter-filled hug... then pulled back, wrinkling his nose. “You smell funny, Dean.”

“That’s ’cause I brought back an old friend of mine. You wanna meet him?”

Torren nodded warily.

Dean’s head bobbed. “Greetings, Torren Emmagen,” said Dishon.

Torren’s eyes went _wide_. “How’d you do that?”

Dishon chuckled. “My name is Dishon of the Tok’ra. I am Dean’s symbiote. This is how I sound when I speak.”

“Whoa,” Torren breathed.

“Hey, Torren,” Sam called. “Don’t I get a hug?”

Dishon released the toddler, who hurried over to Sam for a hug. Sam not only hugged him but picked him up.

“You smell funny, too, Sam,” Torren observed. “Have you got a... a... can you do that?”

Sam’s chuckle morphed into Salim’s. “Greetings, Torren. My name is Salim.”

“How do you talk funny? You don’t talk like Todd, but you don’t talk like Sam, neither.”

Salim considered a moment. “I don’t know. My species always sounds like this when we speak through our hosts.”

“Oh, you’re guests?” At Salim’s confused look, he said, “If you’ve got hosts, then you’re guests, right?”

Salim smiled. “Yes, we are guests in a way—but we often live with our hosts for a very long time.”

“You gonna live with Sam a long time?”

“I don’t know yet. I’d like to.”

“So why are you here?”

Salim’s smile turned sad as he weighed his answer. Teyla edged closer to Dishon.

“... Salim?” Torren looked a little worried.

Salim sighed. “We are here to help our friends make sure the galaxy is safe for little boys to ask questions.”

Torren looked at him for a moment, then hugged him. Salim hugged back almost as if Torren were blood kin.

“The city is safe, isn’t it?” Teyla asked Dishon quietly.

Dishon nodded, but it was Dean who answered. “We’ll try to add extra wards to the shield somehow, but yeah, you guys did a good job. TJ’s safe here.”

Teyla hugged him and whispered, “I’m sorry about your mother. Such pain is seldom quick to heal.”

“Thanks.”

“Would you let me serve you tea on the anniversary?”

Dean’s arms seemed to tighten as much as his throat did. “That’d be awesome,” he choked out.

She rubbed his back for a moment, and he drank in the simple comfort of just having a friend who _got it_. When he finally let go, she tipped her head forward a bit, and he bent his down to touch foreheads.

“Welcome home,” she said.

“Thanks, Teyla,” he replied and meant it with all his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Enola for helping me out with the “guests” line, which was apparently something one of En’s friends heard from her son while watching SG-1, and for other general brainstorming on this chapter.
> 
> For those of you who don’t know SGA well, Teyla’s people have a mourning ritual where friends of the bereaved serve him or her a memorial tea on the anniversary of the death. I suspect that at this stage, Dean would be more likely to accept that offer as a healthier outlet for his grief than the Winchester standard of too much alcohol and no talking. 


	4. Chapter 3: Only Human

“No,” said Chaya Sar.

Dean was getting a headache from the double-strength annoyance he was feeling. Granted, Chaya was the only ascended Ancient they were able to actually talk to, and that only because she was exiled and blahblahblah. But if Dishon was right that the Others were all like her in general attitudes toward stuff, and if Sheppard couldn’t get _her_ to see sense, the Others weren’t going to be convinced by anything short of an actual demon attack that resulted in one or more Ancients being un-ascended or whatever, captured, and used to power an attempt to take over Hell.

“You’re just humans,” Chaya continued. “I know you mean well, but I don’t think you quite grasp the nature of the ascended. So thank you, but I really don’t need your protection.”

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Sam returned, and judging from his tone of voice, he and Salim might be even more ticked off than Dean and Dishon were. “I don’t think you quite grasp the nature of the threat. Maybe if you’d hold your hand out toward my brother, he can give you a practical demonstration.”

She laughed and put her left hand down on the table in front of Dean. “Demonstration of what, a flea bite?”

Okay, that was it. Dean pulled the consecrated iron dagger he’d hidden in his belt and nailed her hand to the table.

She gasped. “OW! That... that... _hurts!_ ” The wound wasn’t bleeding or even burning much, but she couldn’t pull away from the dagger when she tried.

Dishon took over. “As the Tau’ri would say, Chaya Sar, the ascended are nothing more than supercharged ghosts. You may possess the might of demigods, but even true gods can be slain. We have seen them die as easily as the System Lords they sought to aid.”

“Your kind could not defeat the Wraith or the Goa’uld in life,” Salim added. “How, in this living death, do you hope to defeat a host of demons intent on your enslavement?”

She snarled and looked at Sheppard. “How dare you bring these _things_ into my presence!”

“These _things_ happen to be personally responsible for _saving Earth_ by fighting demons,” Sheppard replied. “Answer his question.”

She didn’t, her eyes full of shock, confusion, pain, anger, and fear as she tried again to simply pull her hand back. Dishon let her struggle a couple more times before his lip curled and he pulled the dagger out. She promptly disappeared.

“Let’s go,” Sheppard said quietly.

The brothers followed him back to the Puddle Jumper at just short of a run. Chaya didn’t try to stop them, which Dishon figured meant she was glad to see them go and Dean figured probably meant she just didn’t want to find out whether they had a weapon that could actually kill her. They didn’t—the Colt was at Bobby’s—but there was little chance of Chaya knowing that.

Once they were in space and headed for the Gate, Sheppard snapped, “That was _not_ a good idea.”

“She was askin’ for it,” Dean snapped back.

“It’s called diplomacy. Ever heard of it?”

“Dean has all the tact of a bull elephant,” Sam snarked.

Sheppard didn’t look at Sam, just dialed the Gate. “Well, you encouraged him, Mr. Stanford Pre-law, and I happen to know you took International Relations for that degree.”

The Jumper shot through the Gate and back into Atlantis.

Sam huffed. “We had to prove to her that she’s still vulnerable.”

“Look,” Sheppard replied, “I’m not the Ancients’ biggest fan, either. But you can’t go stabbing our allies in the hand just to prove a point.”

“Allies?!”

Dishon stepped forward. “Your history with her notwithstanding, Chaya Sar is less an ally to Atlantis than the Genii are. She cares only about her own people, and her exile is the result of that, not the cause.”

Sheppard guided the Jumper back to its usual parking space in the Jumper bay. “And now she’s even less of an ally than she had been.”

“But if she’s smart, she’ll live,” Sam stated. “And that was the point.”

“Still.”

Dean held up his hands. “All right, fine, I won’t be shooting or stabbing anyone else. Unless the Wraith try to eat me.”

Sheppard snorted. “If things go that pear-shaped, you’re probably on your own.”

The back of the Jumper opened, and the three men were halfway down the ramp when Sam suddenly frowned a little, slowed, and stopped. Dean and Sheppard looked at him questioningly, but his eyes were unfocused, as if he were listening to or watching something they couldn’t hear or see.

“Sammy?” Dean prompted.

Sam held up a finger, but soon he started carrying on his end of the conversation out loud. “T-... To—Tor—Torren. _Torren_. Let her sleep. She—she’s _okay_ , but you need—Torren John. Settle. Down. ... We’re here now, and we’ll be there in just a minute, okay? ... Okay, buddy. Hang tight.” His eyes widened as they focused on Dean and he blew the air out of his cheeks.

“Dude,” said Dean. “You pulled out the Dad voice.”

“And used both names,” Sheppard added. “What’s up?”

Sam shook his head and started toward the transporter, the other two falling into step beside him. “Torren’s all upset because Teyla’s still under and he can’t hear her thoughts. We’d better go check on him; I’m worried he’ll try to pull her out of the sedation. That’s the last thing Jennifer needs—hell, the last thing Teyla needs.”

“You think he can do that?”

“Hard to say. Not like there’s a precedent. With a double dose of the Gift, I’d say it’s possible. Or he could just make enough psychic noise that he’d be able to get through.”

Sheppard cursed quietly and punched in their destination as soon as they got to the transporter. Dean didn’t curse out loud, but both he and Dishon concurred with Sam’s analysis. Teyla and her ex Kanaan, Torren’s father, were both among the handful of Athosians descended from subjects of a Wraith experiment that left them fully human but with enough recombinant Wraith DNA in their genes to make them able to tune into what the Winchesters called Wraith Radio. So far as anyone knew, Torren was the first child ever to have “the Gift” on both sides of the family, which had the potential to make life interesting. To date, the only people he’d connected with were Teyla, Todd, Kanaan, and—for reasons still unknown—Sam, plus McKay the one time he and Sam had been body-swapped. And that had been only minor-league telepathy. But considering that Teyla had successfully mind-controlled Wraith queens before, including once while pregnant with Torren, there really was no telling what the boy was capable of on his own.

And they really did need to keep Torren calm. Todd had come to the conclusion that the only way to get the Wraith to listen to the warning about the combined threat from the demons and the Lucian Alliance was for Teyla to reappear as the Primary of Todd’s former alliance, with Todd as her second in command and Sam and Dean as specimens captured during a jaunt into the Milky Way. He was sure he could bluff past any suspicions of the truth that the ZPM-powered superhive had kicked him out and then been destroyed over Earth... as long as Teyla was there to provide visual proof that he was still in her good graces. So Dr. Jennifer Keller was currently in the process of performing the surgery needed to transform Teyla’s appearance so she could pass for a Wraith queen. But it was a long, complicated procedure, and Torren clearly hadn’t fully understood just how long Teyla would be unconscious. Hell, Dean had vague memories of thinking the first hour Mom had been in labor with Sam was an eternity, so he could sympathize. He just hadn’t had the power to make Sammy arrive any faster. If Torren managed to wake Teyla... well, Dean really didn’t want to think about it.

The transporter deposited them two doors down from where Gate technician Amelia Banks was babysitting Torren for the day. This time it was Sheppard who set the pace, though, and Sheppard who got the first knockdown tearful Torren hug. And in Dean’s opinion, that was probably as it should be. He didn’t know when circumstances would allow Sheppard and Teyla to get together for real, but he hoped for everyone’s sake it would be soon so Torren would have the green light to start calling his namesake “Dad.”

“Hey, TJ,” Sheppard said gently, holding Torren close. “What’s the trouble?”

“Mommy!” Torren wailed.

“Aunt Jennifer’s still working on her, buddy. You need to let her sleep.”

“But....”

“It’s a long time. I know. But if she wakes up too soon, it’ll hurt her.”

“But....”

“Shh.” Sheppard rubbed Torren’s back. “She’s still here. She’s still with Aunt Jennifer. You just gotta be patient.”

“Don’t wanna be patient. I want Mommy.” But while Torren’s tears hadn’t subsided, the volume of his voice was now more of a whine than a wail. That was progress.

Sheppard’s voice dropped to more of a whisper. “I know. I’m worried about her, too. But we’ve done this before. It takes a long time, but she’ll be fine.”

Torren sniffled. “If she’ll be fine, why are you worried?”

“I always worry about your mommy.”

“Why?”

“Same reason you do.”

Torren whimpered and buried his nose in the crook of Sheppard’s neck.

Banks smiled sadly and turned to address the Winchesters. “How’d it go on Proculus?”

Sam sighed. “About like you’d expect with Ancients. Chaya wouldn’t take us seriously until Dean proved she was vulnerable.”

“Yeah,” Dean added, “and apparently she doesn’t like snakeheads, even if they’re Tok’ra. ’Course, I dunno how she knew about the Goa’uld if she was born here, but....”

Banks shrugged. “Probably part of the history the Ancients learned in whatever kind of schools they had. We learn about Greece and Rome; they probably learned about the Milky Way years.”

 _That is reasonable_ , Dishon agreed. _Ancients were much like humans; they would not have passed on genetic memory as my kind do. But it is clear that the Ancients recalled enough about Earth to return there when the war against the Wraith turned against them._

“Hey, after you guys brief Mr. Woolsey, Dr. McKay needs to talk to you. He thinks he’s found a way to use the shield generators to form a city-wide devil’s trap.”

Dean brightened. “Seriously?”

“He still thinks it’s stupid, but yeah, he says it’s one of the strongest ones.”

“Awesome,” the brothers chorused, which got a giggle out of Torren, as usual.

“Anything from Lorne?” Sam asked.

“Heard from Ronon,” Banks replied. Ronon had gone with Lorne and SGA-2 to the Genii homeworld to sit in on Coalition negotiations regarding the ship the Genii had captured from the Pegasus Asgard the previous year. Ladon’s engineers had succeeded in reverse-engineering a fleet that they were now busily securing against any attempted theft by the Lucian Alliance, but the Coalition still had to decide whether to use the original ship to try to warn the elusive rogue aliens. “Turns out, the Genii don’t even know how to use the Asgard communications platform. And considering that these Asgard have been experimenting on humans, plus the fact that they activated the Attero device and blew up so many Stargates in the process of trying to take out Wraith, there’s a pretty strong sense that maybe they deserve whatever the demons might do to them. Ronon sure thinks so, and Maj. Lorne’s leaning that way.”

“Can’t say I blame ’em,” said Sheppard. “On the other hand, we’re planning to warn the Wraith.”

“Yeah,” Dean conceded, “but it’s kinda like the difference between werewolves and witches. Werewolves don’t have a choice; they have to kill humans to live. When a witch kills, it’s pure malice.”

“Well, with the gene therapy Todd helped Keller perfect, it’s more like vampires and witches,” Sam noted. “I mean, vampires like Lenore can survive by feeding on animals, but it has to be a conscious choice. And taking the gene therapy would be a conscious choice.”

“Still.”

“Yeah, no, I see what you’re saying. And you’re not wrong.”

Banks shrugged. “Well, Mr. Woolsey said that if we’re warning everyone else, we ought to warn the Asgard. So he’s asked the SGC for instructions on how the Othalla Asgard platform worked. But he recommended that whoever contacts them be from a world that _hasn’t_ tangled with them lately.”

“Send Larrin,” Sheppard drawled. “If she can’t knock some sense into ’em, no one will.”

The other adults in the room laughed, and Torren giggled even though he hadn’t ever met the Travelers’ leader.

Sheppard rubbed Torren’s back again. “I gotta go talk to Mr. Woolsey. You gonna be okay to stay here with Amelia?”

Torren sniffled. “When’s Mommy gonna wake up?”

“It’s probably gonna be a few more hours. Like, after supper. But I can come right back after I make my report.”

Torren whined.

“That’ll take maybe thirty minutes, bud. Promise.”

“’Kay.” Torren sniffled again and let go.

Dean knelt down as Sheppard stood. “Hey, Teej. We’re not goin’ anywhere without your mom. You know that, right?”

Torren nodded and hugged Dean.

“All right. Me and Sam, we got some stuff to take care of after we talk to Woolsey, but we’ll see you at supper, maybe sooner.”

“’Kay.”

“And if you’re real good for Miss Amelia, maybe I’ll tell you about the time we got stuck in a sitcom. And then Sam got turned into a car.”

“For reals?”

“Yeah. Story’s a lot funnier now.”

“As I recall, you thought the last part was pretty funny at the time,” Sam retorted, and Dishon couldn’t suppress a mental snort.

Dean just smiled. “So what do you think, TJ? ’S it a deal?”

Torren thought for a moment, then smiled. “Deal.”

“Awesome.” Dean hugged him again quickly, then tweaked his nose with a wink and stood.

“A _car_?” Sheppard echoed.

“I got better,” Sam deadpanned and gave Torren a hug of his own.

Sheppard waited until they were in the transporter to continue. “Seriously? A car? What....”

“Gabriel,” the brothers replied, and Dean punched the button for the Gateroom.

* * *

Exactly how Dishon managed to pull rank on Woolsey to get Dean out of any disciplinary action for stabbing Chaya, Sam didn’t know. It had something to do with some dirt the Tok’ra had on the IOA, but Salim wasn’t inclined to explain. The long and short of it was, though, that Dean wasn’t in trouble and was on his way to check with McKay about the energy-beam devil’s trap he was setting up via the shield generators. Sheppard was headed back to Torren, who was starting to get anxious again, and that left Sam to check in with Todd about the arrangements for the show they’d be putting on for the Wraith the next day.

On the iratus-infested Wraith homeworld.

“Do not worry!” Todd assured him. “I know the planet well enough to take us to the location without the slightest possibility of harm.”

Sam rubbed his neck anxiously. “You sure we have to have the meeting there?”

“It is the closest thing to neutral ground that Wraith will recognize. No single hive may claim that planet; it is common to all. Any other location would fall within the territory of one hive or alliance, and we would be in grave danger from more than the iratus.”

“Perhaps we should take salt water in super-soakers,” Salim suggested. “That would ensure our safe passage.”

Todd laughed, but when Sam ran the idea by Woolsey later, Woolsey thought it was the best idea he’d heard all day. And how he happened to know that Rivers had bought a super-soaker for Torren’s birthday and never given it to him, Sam had no clue.

Now, the plan, as Sam understood it, was for Todd, Teyla, and the brothers to Gate to a neutral planet, where one of Todd’s hives would pick them up and take them to the Wraith homeworld. There they’d set up a conference space in a clearing (surrounded by salt, Sam suggested and Todd agreed), and the Primaries from the other major alliances would show up to hear them out. Each queen was allowed one commander but no other warriors. Todd would do most of the talking, since he had the best grasp of how to explain the threat in terms the other Wraith would understand. Sam and Dean would be there mainly as visual specimens—which Sam translated as eye candy and made Salim laugh heartily—and backup in case one of the other queens decided to try something. But everything depended on Teyla’s ability to bluff past the other queens’ guard.

Sam suddenly found himself as anxious as Torren was to have Teyla back with them.

“Dude,” Dean said when they caught up with each other outside Banks’ quarters. “What the hell are you nervous about? This can’t be as bad as Detroit.”

Sam huffed. “That’s not the point, Dean. Yes, Lucifer’s a whole lot scarier than even a dozen Wraith queens, but at least then we knew what we were getting into. And we weren’t taking... anyone else with us.”

“—You realize you almost called Teyla a civilian.”

Sam rolled his eyes.

“Seriously, Sam.”

“I... I dunno. I guess it’s just not knowing what she’s gonna look like, whether she can carry it off.”

“She’s done it before. Fooled Todd’s Primary.”

“For what, two minutes?”

“ _Sam_.”

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

But the conversation was interrupted by Lorne calling in on the radio. “Message received and rejected,” he reported. “We’re heading back through this wormhole.”

“Lorne, this is Sheppard,” Sheppard replied. “Did you send Larrin?”

“She wasn’t available, but Shiana was.”

“Wow. Bet that was a shouting match.”

“Not really. They hung up as soon as she said ‘demons.’”

Brothers and Tok’ra snorted and chorused, “Idjits.”

“I heard that!” Sheppard called, having first turned off his radio.

“We meant the Asgard,” they called back as they walked into Banks’ quarters to find Sheppard grinning, Banks fighting giggles, and Torren not even fighting.

“Man, we are batting .000 on the winning friends and influencing aliens front today,” Dean continued. “Even the mist creatures on 224 had sense enough to find some way to bury their Gate when we told ’em what was going on.”

Sheppard ruffled Torren’s hair. “Asgard always have had an attitude when it comes to humans. At least Hermiod did.”

“’S it supper time yet?” Torren asked.

Sheppard looked at his watch and shrugged. “Ah, close enough.”

The five of them made their way to the mess hall, where Ronon and Lorne joined them just in time for Torren to wheedle the story about TVLand and the Sampala out of Dean (and _Sampala_ was one of those portmanteau words that struck Sam as just all kinds of wrong, even if Salim laughed uproariously). Then McKay and Zelenka showed up and started getting into all kinds of really technical explanations about this trap-generating plan Dean had signed off on, and Sam found it harder and harder to pay attention to his friends rather than worrying about the next day—about Teyla. He couldn’t quit thinking through all the ways the plan could go wrong.

 _Sam_ , Salim suddenly barked.

Sam blinked. _What?_

_Why have you taken Torren’s fear?_

The question startled Sam. He hadn’t even been aware that was what he was doing. But Torren seemed to be having a grand old time now that he had most of his extended-by-choice family around him. And so was everyone else—except Dean, of course, who was keeping a wary eye on Sam.

Sam cleared his throat. “Uh, Dean, can I....” He jerked his head toward the exit.

Dean didn’t look any less worried when he nodded. “Yeah, sure. ’Scuse us,” he added for the rest of the table’s benefit before following Sam out into the hallway. Once they were out of the general earshot, though, Dean grabbed Sam’s arm. “Dude, what the hell is going on with you?”

Sam blew the air out of his cheeks. “Salim thinks I’m absorbing Torren’s anxiety.”

Dean blinked. “ _How_?”

“Hell if I know. But you gotta admit, it makes some sense. And honestly, given the panic he was in earlier? Better me than him.”

“Yeah, until you lose control of the EMF and start blowing out equipment left and right. Seriously, Sam—”

“Look, I don’t even know _what_ I’m doing, never mind how to stop.”

“Well, shove it off on Todd!”

“I don’t know if I can!”

Dean shook his head as he half-turned away and ran a hand over his nose and mouth.

Sam sighed. “I’m sorry, Dean. At least it isn’t visions this time,” he added in an attempt at levity.

Dean huffed and shook his head again. “Dude, don’t. Just don’t.” But he wasn’t able to keep the corner of his mouth from twitching upward.

Before Sam could say anything else, though, he sensed Teyla beginning to surface from the anesthesia. “We’d better get back,” he told Dean. “Teyla’s waking up—on her own, I think.”

Dean nodded and turned—just in time to catch Torren as he came barreling out of the mess hall. Just how Dean managed to sweep Torren up over his shoulder without even breaking stride was beyond Sam, but Torren barely had time to yelp before Dean was hauling him back to the team’s table.

“But MOMMY!” Torren protested.

“She’s not all the way awake yet, dude,” Dean replied firmly. “We’ll go see her when Jennifer says we can go see her and not before.”

“Saaaam!”

Sam held up his hands as he followed. “He’s right, Torren. And even if he weren’t, I don’t argue with him when he uses that voice.”

Dean didn’t have to turn around for Sam to know what incredulous expression he was wearing. “What are you talkin’ about? You argued with _Dad_ when he used that voice.”

“I meant _now_.”

“Oh, whatever.” And Dean tickled Torren’s side for good measure.

Torren shrieked and squirmed and flailed, but he couldn’t get away from Dean’s grasp until Dean handed him to Ronon, who handed him to McKay, who handed him to Lorne, who handed him to Banks, who spun around with him three times before handing him off to Sheppard. At that point, Torren was giggling too hard to try to escape again. It was only about five minutes later that Keller called the lot of them up to the infirmary waiting room, and Sheppard had just finished reminding Torren that he needed to walk and stand next to Teyla’s bed rather than following his usual flying tackle method when Keller let them in to see Teyla. Sheppard kept his hand on Torren’s shoulder as they trooped into the room, and Torren did behave himself, neither pouncing on his mother nor freaking out at her new face.

And the new face was... somewhat disturbing. Sam hadn’t been sure what to expect, but he didn’t think he’d expected to see Teyla’s dark skin turned Wraith greenish-grey, her short copper hair now long and black, her usually warm brown eyes hidden under yellow slit-pupiled contacts. She looked... well, she looked like a Wraith, which had been the whole point. And he didn’t know whether he was more creeped out or relieved.

 _Oh ye of little faith_ , Salim teased.

“Mommy?” Torren prompted.

Teyla smiled. “Hi, baby boy,” she replied quietly, her voice now flanged like a Wraith’s but still gentle.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Still pretty sleepy and a little sore, but I’ll be fine in a little while. Have you been good for Amelia?”

He nodded in turn. “I was scared, though. I couldn’t hear you.”

“I’m sorry, angel. The procedure just takes a long time. It’ll be the same when Aunt Jennifer undoes it in a few days.”

He took a deep breath and nodded again. “Okay.”

“Now that you know, will you not be so scared?”

“I... I think so.”

She caressed his cheek with her left hand. “That’s my good, brave boy.”

Dean looked away, and Sam wondered what he was imagining—or remembering.

“You gonna be good to go in the morning?” Sheppard asked.

Teyla nodded. “Yes. A good night’s rest should be all I need. Todd will not have to instruct me this time, and I will have Sam and Dean as backup.”

Dean blinked and looked back at her. “Instruct? Y’mean, Todd did the whole _My Fair Lady_ thing last time?”

It took Teyla a moment to place the reference, but when she did, she fought a smile briefly before replying with a remarkably good, “Just you wait, ’Enry ’Iggins!”

Everyone laughed, and Sam felt the last of his anxiety—or Torren’s, or whatever—evaporate. They’d be as fine as they ever were.


	5. Chapter 4: The Show Must Go On

“My queen,” Todd said with an exaggerated bow when he met Teyla at the infirmary door the next morning. He was teasing, she could tell, but she also knew he was pleased to see her in this get-up again. And given how well things had gone the last time she had played his queen (relatively speaking), she supposed she understood why.

“No murders this time, Commander,” she shot back.

He bowed again, more seriously but still with a hint of a smile, and began walking her to the transporter. “It would be foolhardy to attempt a—Night of the Long Knives, do the humans of Earth call it? We could not hope to take control of so many hives at once, even were that my design.”

“And you are not likely to be welcomed back among the Wraith, even were we inclined to allow you to leave Atlantis for more than this meeting. We can hide the effects of your gene therapy that long, but given what happened to Michael....”

He nodded. “Yes. I doubt my own alliance would accept the revised treatment, and the others never will. But that is not our concern, not until we can be sure that the demon threat has been stopped.”

“Yes. Let us keep our attention there.”

“By the way, we have not discussed suitable raiment for the Winchesters.”

“What is usual for Wraith worshippers?”

“Most wear their own clothes and bear their own weapons. But such specimens as these might warrant a... different manner of display.”

Teyla pondered that suggestion as she pressed the transporter button for the point closest to the brothers’ quarters. “They are unique in Pegasus,” she mused. “And their tattoos would raise necessary questions, not to mention the scar on Dean’s shoulder.” She was still speaking when the doors opened to reveal Sam and Dean standing outside.

She wasn’t sure how much they’d heard when they looked at each other, but apparently it was enough for them to figure out at least part of what she had in mind, because Sam blushed and Dean groaned, “Oh, for—”

“Shirtless!” Teyla exclaimed, wishing the current state of her skin would allow her to blush. “That’s all I meant. Please wear trousers!”

Sam blinked. “What, like our BDU pants?”

“Or jeans. Jeans are not likely to be identifiable as Atlantis issue.”

“Of course,” Todd broke in mildly, “I could attempt to find you raiment from the stores of the hive....”

The brothers looked at each other again and said, “Jeans.”

Fifteen minutes later, the four of them headed down to the Gateroom together, with Sam toting the salt-water gun and Dean tucking his hand device into his back pocket and insisting that he be allowed to keep his black undershirt on until they got settled on the planet. Fifteen minutes after that, they were in hyperspace, with Dishon snarling in Goa’uld at the first scientist who questioned where Teyla had been for so long and Salim providing backup by aiming the salt-water gun as if it were a P-90. If the risk of a potential mutiny were not so high, Teyla would have laughed at the bluff. But it worked, and the team settled into the queen’s quarters to wait through the two-hour hyperspace flight to the Wraith homeworld.

Because the only way to get from the hive to the surface of the planet was by Dart, the team couldn’t arrive exactly at the clearing where Todd had told the other queens to meet them. But he was as good a guide as he had promised to be, and while Teyla was aware that there were iratus bugs nearby and Sam held the salt-water gun ready just in case, he never had to spray anything. The Wraith warriors set up the meeting site quickly and even set a thick salt circle at the perimeter when Todd asked them to. Then, at his command, the warriors left, and Teyla sank down into the armless wooden chair that had been designated for her.

As Sam slid the salt-water gun under Teyla’s chair from the left side, Dean sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “So now what?” he asked her. “They didn’t bring down enough chairs. We supposed to stand, sit, kneel?”

Teyla considered the question. “On Earth, queens often have guard dogs seated beside their thrones, do they not?”

The brothers blinked and looked at each other, this time seeming to have an entire silent conversation. Then Sam cleared his throat. “You, um... want us to kneel like this?” Turning to face the center of the circle as she was, he knelt with both knees touching the ground and his rear resting on his heels. Then he leaned forward so that his shoulder was about at the height of a comfortable chair arm and looked over at her, then up at Todd.

“Head bowed,” Todd recommended, “and with your arms behind you as if they are bound. In fact, I ought to tie your wrists loosely, and I should probably blindfold you as well.”

Dean looked skeptical, but Teyla nodded. “The other queens will not understand the nature of the Tok’ra at first, and even when it is explained, they may view you only as an unfamiliar threat. Your submission must be visible from the start.”

Dean rolled his eyes.

Sam huffed. “Dean, c’mon. It’s not like we’ll be in chains. We’re just... guard dogs. Or guard Tok’ra. Or... whatever.”

“Yeah, says the Shaggy DA.” Dean walked away for a moment, stopped, and suddenly said, “Oh, no. No—no— _hell_ , no, we are _not_ telling Lisa!”

Sam nearly choked trying not to laugh.

Dean seemed to argue with Dishon for a moment longer before stripping off his T-shirt and stomping back over to the right side of Teyla’s chair with a look of extreme annoyance. He knelt, then used the shirt to cover the salt-water gun and glared over at Todd. “You’re not usin’ my shirt for blindfolds.”

Todd grinned and held up a handful of dark fabric that he’d probably had hidden up his sleeve.

Dean huffed. “Just... get it over with.”

Todd nodded and started with Sam, binding his eyes fairly tightly but putting only a loose knot in the bond around Sam’s wrists. “There. That should be easy enough to get out of, wouldn’t you say?”

Sam felt for the end of the strip of cloth near his hand and nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s good. How’s it look, Teyla?”

“It looks convincing,” Teyla reported. “From a distance, it will look like you are tied securely.”

“Dunno how we’re supposed to be guard dogs if we’re tied up like this,” Dean grumbled, but Dishon took over and held still while Todd applied the blindfold and wrist bond, moving only to make sure he could still reach the hand device with his left hand.

“Well, aren’t most guard dogs kept on a short leash anyway?” Sam replied as Todd worked. “At least in a setup like this, they’re more for intimidation than anything. And if Teyla’s supposed to show no weakness... well, having guys like us on a short leash is pretty much the opposite of weak. Besides, after what happened with Chaya, Woolsey’s probably going to be a lot happier with us tied up and not making more enemies.”

“That would be inadvisable,” Dishon agreed. “And the bonds truly are only for show.”

“Whatever,” Dean grumbled after Dishon gave back control. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Teyla put her right hand on his shoulder, pushed gently until he was leaning forward at the correct angle, and then rubbed a little, being careful not to brush the handprint scar that covered the muscle. But doing so made her realize that she’d overlooked something. “Oh, I’ve just thought—feeding marks.”

Dean shook his head. “Now that, I can tell you. We don’t scar as Tok’ra. Probably be hard to dope us up with enough enzyme to make us compliant, too, but the others don’t need to know that.”

She sighed in relief and squeezed his shoulder briefly. “Thank you.”

But then there was no more time for talk. Todd scanned the skies and reported, “Another hive approaches.”

“I’m gonna kel’no’reem,” said Sam. “Not deep, but enough that the queens shouldn’t know I’ve got a Wraith Radio scanner.”

Todd frowned. “A what?”

Teyla ignored him. “That’s a good idea. Humans from Earth do not have the Gift.”

“Thought we were supposed to be big, bad Tok’ra,” Dean snarked.

Sam probably rolled his eyes. “Dude, shut up. Teyla, just squeeze my shoulder if you need me.”

Teyla nodded, though he couldn’t see it. “Understood.”

Sam took a deep breath and let it out again, and his muscles relaxed slightly as he slid into a meditative state. Dean settled but did not relax, so Teyla decided to keep her hand on his shoulder for the moment. She drew and released a deep breath of her own. And then the whine of Darts began to herald the arrival of the other queens.

“You’re okay, Teyla,” Dean whispered. “We’ve got your back.”

She smiled slightly and squeezed his shoulder again. Then she took another deep breath and stood as the first queen, one of the taller red-haired variety, entered the clearing with her second.

“What are _they_ doing here?” this queen snarled, looking at the Winchesters.

“They are the reason for this meeting,” Teyla returned. “I thought it advisable for them to be present, as they have information that all need to hear.”

Two more queens joined them, one with white hair and one with black. Together the three queens circled Sam and Dean, examining them from all sides and sniffing—but not touching, thank the Ancestors.

“They are not human,” the white-haired queen remarked. “What are they?”

“Tok’ra,” Teyla replied. “We captured them in Earth’s galaxy.”

All three queens looked up at her. “You have been to Earth?” the black-haired queen asked sharply.

“We have, and there is great danger there that may have followed us. That is why we returned and why I requested this meeting.”

“You lie! You wish the feeding ground all to yourself!”

Teyla glanced toward Todd, who stepped in front of her. “The feeding ground may be rich, o queens, but there is a predator there that preys on all forms of life, including Wraith. Not even the Ascended are safe from this threat. We will explain everything once all have arrived.”

The black-haired queen hissed, but the white-haired queen turned to Dean. “You, Tok’ra. Is this so?”

Dishon took over, probably to prevent whatever snarl Dean had been preparing. “It is true. The demons will spare no one. This scar on my shoulder was made when a greater being even than they rescued me from them.”

“And the mark on your chest? Is that the mark of the Tok’ra?”

“No. It is for protection against demons.”

“Come sit,” Teyla interrupted. “My commander will explain as he has promised once the others have arrived.”

The black-haired queen hissed again, but the other queens nodded to each other and sat down, and finally the black-haired queen joined them. Each queen’s commander stood behind her. Soon more queens arrived, and all circled Sam and Dean before taking their own seats. But Teyla got the sense that they were all too suspicious of each other to try anything.

Once everyone was settled, Teyla began the speech she had prepared with Todd’s help. “We have all been anxious to find Earth for some years now. But that desire was a mistake, and not only because Earth has greater defenses than most planets in this galaxy. There is, as I have told some of you, a type of predator on Earth that seeks to devour all life, including Wraith. Though my hive escaped, the demons may try to follow us. That is why I have requested this meeting, to share with you the nature of the threat and the means of defending against it.”

A queen who looked a little like Todd’s former Primary narrowed her eyes. “Why would you do so? You cannot trust us, any more than we trust you. Why would you seek to save your enemies from a threat that could eliminate them and leave you to rule the galaxy?”

“Because that threat also threatens me. Like Replicators, they will seek to destroy us all, humans and Wraith. But worse than Replicators, they wish to devour and enslave—their plan is worse than death.”

“How so?”

Teyla gestured toward Todd. “My commander will explain.”

Todd stepped forward, bowed, and began to lecture as if he’d studied demons all his life. Teyla tuned him out; she knew the information already and wasn’t particularly interested in how it was framed for a Wraith’s perspective. Instead, she kept an eye on the other queens. Most were warily curious and asked perceptive questions, but the black-haired queen who’d arrived early still looked ready to murder them for withholding the coordinates to Earth.

Finally, that queen could contain herself no longer. “Enough, enough, ENOUGH!” she roared. “They lie, they lie! They want Earth for themselves!”

“It is not safe!” Teyla shouted.

“I do not believe you. I _cannot_ believe you! TELL US WHERE EARTH IS!” She leapt out of her chair and lunged toward Teyla.

Sam didn’t move, but before Teyla could even put her hand on his shoulder, the black-haired queen froze in mid-stride. Quiet gasps and palpable shock rippled around the circle.

“My queen,” Dishon said softly to Teyla, “close your mind.”

“You want to know the truth?” Sam asked the queen in his telekinetic grasp. “I’ll show you the damn _truth_.”

Teyla raised her mental guard swiftly and focused all her energy on keeping it strong, yet she could still sense the barrage of memories Sam unleashed through the mind-link. She couldn’t actually see anything, but given the screams that reached her mind as through a locked door and a distant corridor, she assumed he must be showing the other queens Hell. They gasped and struggled, but Sam would not relent. After a moment, Dean leaned over and put his head in Teyla’s lap, grounding her. She rubbed his back gratefully.

“ENOUGH!” shrieked the red-haired queen who’d been the first to arrive. “Make him stop! MAKE HIM STOP!”

With an effort, Teyla put her left hand on Sam’s shoulder and squeezed.

The mental bombardment stopped, but Sam didn’t release the queen that had tried to attack Teyla. “That was a preview,” he snarled. “That was barely a _taste_. I’ve got 140 years or more of memories locked up in here, and even that would only be scratching the surface. Those demons, they want to do that to you for _eternity_. You’ve all been alive a long time—thousands of years, some of you tens of thousands. You’re all capable of dying, but you don’t want to. And I get that, I do. But in Hell, you _cannot_ die. You live through that horror day after day until you forget what it’s like to live anything else. You’ll forget the sky. You’ll forget the stars. You’ll forget the freedom of roaming the galaxy, of feeding your appetites, of indulging your curiosity. No one will bow to you. No one will pray to you. No one will beg you for mercy. And there’s no end. No relief. No way out. You’ll be _nothing_ —and you _will not die_.”

“You escaped,” breathed a different red-haired queen with a line of tattoos down one side of her neck.

“Our circumstances were different. My brother was rescued, and I fell into Hell physically. I couldn’t have made it out if I hadn’t been Tok’ra, and as it was, I barely survived.”

Dean sat up. “It’s true. He was in real rough shape when he got back.”

Teyla squeezed Sam’s shoulder again. “Sam. Let her go.”

The black-haired queen shook suddenly, as if Sam had jostled her as a parting shot, and then stumbled forward as he released her. She caught herself before she could fall but still struggled to keep up her façade of invulnerability as she straightened. So Teyla decided to play it safe and tapped the side of her thumb against Dean’s left shoulder blade, then moved her hand back to his shoulder to cover his slight shift as he pushed his left hand into his back pocket and into the hand device.

When the black-haired queen regained her equilibrium, though, she didn’t try to charge Teyla again. Instead, she paced across to stand in front of Sam, doing her best to restrain any noise that might give away her position. Sam didn’t move, and the black-haired queen smirked briefly before snarling, “I shall teach you to show respect, Tok’ra filth!”

But as her right hand came up, so did Dean’s left. The motion caught her eye, and she hissed and hesitated long enough for the bolt from the hand device to catch her squarely in the chest and send her flying backward. Teyla didn’t even have to help Dean aim.

“My queen!” bellowed the black-haired queen’s commander as he raced around her chair to aid her.

The queen, however, gasped and wheezed a few times before using the commander as leverage to surge back to her feet. “You treacherous, witless _worm!_ ” she screamed at Dean.

“I barely hurt you,” Dean shot back. “You’re lucky I didn’t blow your head off. But you come after my brother again, and I _will_ kill you.”

Teyla moved her hand to caress the back of Dean’s neck. “Dean. Enough. We are here to talk, not to fight.”

The muscle in Dean’s jaw twitched, but he put his left arm back where it had been and shifted closer to her chair.

But though he couldn’t see it, the Wraith who had heard Dishon speak earlier were staring at him in confusion. “You speak like the humans of Atlantis,” noted the black-haired queen’s commander.

Dean snorted. “Do I _look_ like I’m from Atlantis?”

Sam’s head dropped forward as Salim took over. “We come from a planet called Vorash,” Salim lied, and the Wraith’s confusion increased further. “Our people and our world were destroyed by our enemies, but this most gracious queen offered us her protection. We are eternally grateful to her.”

“What is the meaning of this?” the first red-haired queen demanded. “Why do you speak with two voices?”

“We are two souls who share this body, symbiotes. I am Salim”—he broke off and returned control—“and I’m Sam,” Sam finished. “The fact that we can share makes this relationship a lot different from demon possession. When a human is possessed by a demon, the demon soul prevents the human from having any control at all.”

“You speak as though you yourself have been possessed.”

Sam nodded. “I have. Twice. The first time was before we got these tattoos. The second time... well, Lucifer is _the_ Devil, the father of all demons. He was too strong to be stopped by the sigil.”

“But that’s why Sam was in Hell,” Dean added. “He locked Lucifer in a cage that should hold him for the foreseeable future, so all we’re left with are the normal garden-variety stunt demons that _can_ be stopped with salt and devil’s traps.”

“And you did all this from Vorash?” asked the second red-haired queen.

“Uh, no, Vorash was destroyed. We were operating out of another planet called Revanna.”

“I thought demons were from Earth.”

“Lucifer wanted to rule the entire universe,” Sam stated flatly. “Some of the demons still do. That’s the problem.”

Another white-haired queen who hadn’t spoken much stood. “Well. This has all been most enlightening. I believe we ought all to return to our own ships and consider what use to make of the information we have received.”

The other queens murmured their agreement and left rather quickly.

But this white-haired queen stayed behind until the others were out of earshot. Then she walked up to Teyla and the Winchesters. “You do not fool me, humans,” she said. “You are from Earth—your speech betrays you. Yet the rest of what you say is true?”

Sam cleared his throat and fidgeted. “Yeah. It’s true.”

She studied him, then moved to Dean and studied him for a moment before taking off his blindfold. Forcing him to look her in the eye, she ordered, “Show me your brother’s possession.”

Dean snarled and obeyed. Teyla slammed shut her mental doors again, but not before getting a glimpse of Sam in a rose garden, wearing a white suit and standing with a posture that was totally unlike the Sam she knew. This time it was Sam who put his head in her lap, but shame and sorrow rolled off of him in waves as she ran her hand over his hair.

The memory Dean replayed for the white queen took several minutes, and whatever it was rattled her badly. “What’s the matter?” Dean jeered as she staggered backward. “Not in the habit of believing six impossible things before breakfast?”

She backhanded him, though Teyla suspected it was more reflex than anything, and stalked away with her second in tow. Shortly thereafter they heard the Darts leaving. Teyla heaved a sigh of relief and put one arm around each brother’s shoulders.

Dean finally relaxed against her. “I can’t believe that worked.”

Sam slipped out of his wrist bond and pulled his blindfold off. “Dean? What did you—”

“The one from 2014.”

“The one where I killed you?!”

Dean looked over at him. “The one that _won’t happen_.”

“Dean....”

“Sam.”

And that was the end of it. Sam ran a hand over his mouth and nodded. Dean nodded back once and pulled on his shirt.

“We should not linger,” Todd stated. “It will not be long before night falls.”

Sam nodded and grabbed the salt-water gun, and Dean stood and helped Teyla to her feet just as the warrior Wraith returned and began carrying away the chairs. But the brothers restrained themselves from doing more until the team was back on the ship and alone in the queen’s quarters. Then and only then did first Sam, then Dean, pull her into a hug.

“You doin’ okay?” Dean asked as he released her, rubbing her shoulder.

Teyla nodded. “Yes. I’m glad you were with me. I think it went much better than I had dared to hope.”

“At least in some respects,” said Todd with a wary glance at Sam.

“Oh, man, don’t even,” Sam groaned. “You didn’t have to watch. You’d already seen some of that.”

Dean turned. “Hey, Todd, you got any food fit for humans on this hunk o’ junk?”

Todd’s lip curled, but he replied, “I shall see,” and left.

Teyla sighed. “Pay him no mind, Sam. I admit that the little I was unable to keep out of my own mind was disturbing, but I’m glad you did what you did. Both of you.”

Both brothers sighed and nodded, and Dean rubbed her shoulder again.

Then Sam frowned and straightened his shoulders. “Hey, y’know... if Wraith don’t believe in Heaven or Hell or anything... what’s gonna happen when those queens go back to their hives and start trying to figure out what to do with what we told them? I mean, are their subordinates gonna think they’re crazy?”

Dean blinked. “You thinkin’... mutiny? Conspiracies?”

“Palace intrigue, yeah, that kind of thing. Could be so busy killing each other they won’t have time to guard against the Lucian Alliance.”

“Or could be so busy killing each other that it won’t matter.”

“I doubt the Wraith will succeed in wiping each other out before the demons can reach this galaxy,” Teyla replied. “But if even a few human lives were saved by what we did today, I’d say that makes it worth the risk and the heartache.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason,” said Dean and hugged her again.


	6. Chapter 5: Kith and Kin

By mid-November, Teyla was back to her usual self and sitting with Sam, Dean, Sheppard, and the rest of the senior staff in one of Woolsey’s weekly briefings, listening to the latest reports on how the defense preparations were progressing. McKay’s city-wide devil’s trap looked like a success to Dean, and the information had been shared with any cultures that had similar Ancient technology, including the kids on 677. Every civilization within the combined spheres of Lantean and Coalition influence—even the AI on the Sekkari seeding device, which was on a planet without a Gate—had received a warning regarding the threat from the Lucian Alliance, and all but the Asgard and possibly the Wraith and Proculans were taking it seriously and making appropriate preparations. Gates on planets known to house sentient but non-mobile life forms, such as the crystal dreamwalker entities on M3X-387, had been rendered inoperable by any means necessary. In short, the galaxy was as ready for a demonic invasion as it could possibly be.

Woolsey nodded thoughtfully as the last report was concluded. “It appears, then, that we have nothing more to do _here_ than wait.”

“I would say so,” Sheppard replied carefully, but Dean didn’t think any of them had missed the significance of where Woolsey had placed the emphasis in his statement.

And sure enough, Woolsey turned to them. “Now, Sam and Dean, you put in a leave request almost a year ago, and that leave is scheduled next week and the week after.”

“Yes, sir,” the brothers chorused warily.

Woolsey smiled. “Relax. I’m not going to ask you to give up the holidays. But Gen. O’Neill and I both think that you and the Tok’ra are needed back in the Milky Way in the short term. So after you make your report to the Tok’ra and Homeworld Command, you’re being temporarily reassigned to the SGC, and the second week of your leave has been rescheduled to cover Christmas and New Year’s.”

“How long do you mean by short term?” Sam asked before Dean could.

Woolsey shook his head. “Gen. O’Neill wasn’t sure. I would think no more than a few months.”

Dean sighed. “You _know_ there’s stuff gunnin’ for us back there.”

“I know. So does the General. Still, we feel that your knowledge of both the threat and the Stargate program, as well as the fact that you’re Tok’ra, makes you more valuable in dealing with other Milky Way leaders than any other hunters would be. That makes it worth the risk.”

Dean grimaced, and Sam slouched in defeat.

“You’ll be spending the bulk of that time at the SGC or at Homeworld Command. Both places are heavily warded, and even human security is exceptional. I’d be very surprised if an unexpected threat managed to get to you there—at least, one originating from Earth,” Woolsey amended.

Dean rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, well, we don’t have to like it,” Sam noted. “Orders are orders. When do we leave?”

“The scheduled dial-out is in two hours,” Woolsey answered.

After the meeting, Dean stomped off toward the brothers’ quarters, and Sam chased after him. “Dude, what’s your problem? You didn’t object to the idea of going back for a two-week vacation.”

“Nobody’s likely to find us in two weeks,” Dean returned. “But two months?”

Sam’s head bobbed. “Two months will scarcely be time enough to brief all the parties in the Milky Way who need our help,” Salim stated, “especially if the Tok’ra High Council or any other authority wishes for us to inspect sites around the galaxy in person. And you know Woolsey’s right about the SGC—we warded the place ourselves.”

Dean ran a hand over his mouth. “There are other hunters who could do that.”

“We’re the only ones already in the program.”

 _Bringing in other hunters increases the risk of unfriendly hunters learning our location_ , Dishon added.

“So they get Bobby to vet everyone!” Dean retorted aloud.

Sam took over again and frowned. “Dean... look, I’m not real happy about this, either, but what’s really going on with you?”

Dean stopped for a moment and spread his arms. “Maybe I _like_ it here, Sam. Did that ever occur to you?” And before Sam could respond, Dean stalked away.

Lantea was so pleased by his declaration, she was practically purring.

It wasn’t until he was back in their quarters that something Salim had said registered for Dean. Before he could ask, though, Dishon said, _Yes, Dean, I suppose we do think of ourselves as hunters now._

Dean blinked. _You... seriously?_

 _Well, we are your symbiotes. There is that. But honestly... our experience with you has been... unique. Our kind had no knowledge of these things, even those few who had blended with the Tau’ri since we renewed contact with Earth. And even now, we alone have had the experience of doing battle with demons and knowing the friendship of angels. We have seen Heaven and Hell alike through your eyes._ Dishon gave the mental equivalent of a head shake. _Should we live ten thousand years, we will never forget our lives with you. You have changed us forever. Saving people and hunting things is now our family business, too._

 _Aw, buddy._ Dean would have hugged Dishon if he could.

* * *

  
Salim was right about what would be waiting for the Winchesters at Cheyenne Mountain. From the minute they walked down the ramp into the SGC’s Gateroom, they found themselves swept up in a week-long whirlwind of meetings, giving briefings, receiving briefings, checking defenses on- and offworld. The demonic faction attempting to reach Purgatory hadn’t lessened its attacks, though that wasn’t a matter that concerned Homeworld Command much. They were more focused on the faction working with the Lucian Alliance, which had increased its attacks on other planets. So far, however, that group of demons hadn’t been able to establish an offworld base that wasn’t already in Alliance control, nor had they succeeded in assaulting an Icarus-type planet long enough to try dialing _Destiny_. They had tried Vihanta again, but the Vihantans had been smart enough to figure out the devil’s trap Sam had burned around their Gate and copied it everywhere, making their settlements virtually demon-proof. The assault had failed almost before it began. The Vihantans had also finally mustered the courage to attack the Alliance base where Dishon and Salim had been working; the Alliance troops had been caught off-guard, and the Vihantans had sent them packing.

Dean still didn’t know why O’Neill had called them back to Earth. So far, it looked like the free peoples of the Milky Way were holding their own pretty well, and he was getting tired of sharing the same information over and over again. But he couldn’t be too mad about meetings that gave them a chance to visit with friendly alien acquaintances, however briefly. The briefing with the Tok’ra High Council was so boring that Dean left Dishon in charge and fell asleep, but the meeting with Bra’tac led into a long suppertime conversation about war stories that was a real blast for both Dean and Sam. And Lya was at the week’s final briefing on Sunday afternoon. When it was over, she sought Dean out to ask after him, Sam, and Bobby, and they had a pleasant chat for several minutes.

Then she asked, “And your son? How is he?”

The question caught Dean off-guard. “Ben? He’s... he’s fine.”

She looked at him for a moment, then took both of his hands in hers. “He is blood of your blood, Dean Winchester. Do not be ashamed to love him as your own.”

 _You have always suspected as much_ , Dishon noted as Dean cast about for an answer.

“It wouldn’ta mattered,” Dean told them both.

“Why not?” Lya asked.

“Because family don’t end with blood. And Ben, Lisa... they’re family.”

She smiled and let him go.

He was still reeling from that conversation later that evening when the brothers got back to their temporary quarters after supper. Bobby wouldn’t be there to pick them up for their Thanksgiving leave until morning, but a lot of the other SGC personnel had already gone home, either for the day or for the week. As the quiet of the base settled around him, Dean sat down on the lower bunk and found himself staring at the floor. He was sliding into shock, and Dishon wasn’t stopping him.

But Sam would. “Hey,” he said, sitting down beside Dean. “What’s goin’ on? What’d Lya say to you?”

“That Ben’s my son,” Dean confessed.

Sam blinked. “That’s good, though, right? I mean—”

“Yeah, yeah, no, I’m... I just... don’t know what to do now. He’s my kid. I need to be there for him. And I can’t do that if we’re in separate galaxies.”

Sam nodded slowly and didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he offered, “Maybe by the time we’re clear to go back to Pegasus, we can talk Lisa into coming with us.”

Dean huffed and shook his head. “No. Nothing’s changed. She’s not gonna want to leave Sioux Falls if Ben’s happy there. Something major’s got to happen before she’ll change her mind.”

Suddenly, with a flash and a bang, the door of the room’s metal wardrobe flew open and a tall, thin, dark-haired man in a light blue suit tumbled through it in the brief time it stayed open. Dean grabbed his zat and aimed it at the guy as he rolled to his knees and looked up at them. There was a brief but tense moment where nobody moved; the newcomer’s eyes were both wary and anxious. Then he spoke:

“Which of you is John Winch—”

Dean stunned him before he could finish the question, and Sam radioed for security. Seconds later, four Marines swooped in and carted the unconscious stranger off to isolation.

“Where the hell did he come from, Narnia?” Sam asked as he and Dean ran after them.

 _Why didn’t you let him finish the question?_ Dishon asked at almost the same time.

“He was askin’ about Dad,” Dean answered both of them. “Like he expected Dad to be here but didn’t know what he looked like.”

“He doesn’t know Dad’s dead,” Sam added, probably for Salim’s benefit. “That—no, I _don’t_ know what that means. He could be one of Dad’s old contacts—”

“Which isn’t likely, since he’s our age. Or—”

“He could be a time traveler,” they finished together.

“Would explain the ’50s suit,” one of the Marines quipped. “He looks like he stepped out of _Mad Men_.”

They didn’t converse much after that, only briefing Landry in the observation room while Dr. Carolyn Lam took blood samples and ran scans on the stranger, who was now laid out on a bed, and the Marines searched his pockets for ID. When they found a wallet and a brass artifact that looked like a pack of cards, Landry went off to see what info Daniel could extract from them. Then the Winchesters turned off the observation room lights, so they couldn’t be seen from the other side of the glass, and settled in to wait. After a minute or two, Teal’c went into the isolation room to stand guard.

A minute or two after that, the stranger stirred and groaned. “Well, this is not what I expected the future to be like,” he said groggily.

“Indeed,” Teal’c returned.

The stranger shook his head slightly to clear it. “Where am I? What year is it?”

Teal’c said nothing.

The stranger sat up and squinted at him a little, then motioned toward his own forehead. “Why do you bear the sign of Apophis? Don’t tell me—”

“Apophis is a false god. A _dead_ false god. Once I was his slave, but now I am free.”

“Oh.” The stranger blinked a couple of times as he processed that. Then he took a deep breath and plastered on a smile. “Well, this has been fascinating....” He paused, clearly hoping for a name.

“You may call me Murray.”

“All right, Murray, but it really is urgent that I speak with John Winchester immediately.”

“You cannot.”

“Look, I understand rules and regulations, but—”

“John Winchester is dead.”

The stranger’s eyes widened, and he paled as his smile vanished. “No. No, no, it _can’t_ be.”

Teal’c tilted his head. “You speak as if you were a friend.”

“More than that. He’s my son.”

Dean felt the blood drain from his own face.

The stranger glanced around. “Look, I’m guessing this is some kind of government facility. My name is Henry Winchester; I’m from Normal, Illinois. I’m a Man of Letters. Surely there’s someone in your government who can verify my identity.”

“We are already checking,” Teal’c replied.

“If—if John’s... if John’s dead, then I need to speak with one of the men who was in the room when I arrived. They must be my grandsons or something.”

Teal’c tilted his head the other way. “On what do you base that assumption?”

“It’s a long story, but the means that brought me here was supposed to take me directly to blood kin. It was 1958 when I left. I was hoping to reach John, but....” Henry trailed off and looked away from Teal’c for a moment, then looked Teal’c in the eye. “Please—if it isn’t classified—how did John die?”

Teal’c held Henry’s gaze for a moment as if to test his sincerity before answering. “He gave his life to save his sons.”

“And they, too, are Men of Letters, correct?”

“I am unfamiliar with that name.”

“It’s a society. We study, observe, record—the supernatural, the unexplained.”

Teal’c inclined his head. “I do not believe such a society still exists on this planet.”

Henry somehow looked even more shocked. “But that’s impossible. We Winchesters, we’re legacies. My son and his sons should have been raised in the ways of the Letters.”

“They were not.”

“Y-you mean they’re out there, uninformed, unprotected against evil?”

“I did not say that. They are hunters.”

Henry let out an incredulous laugh. “Hunters? My grandsons are... are ignorant, violent _apes_?”

If Dean hadn’t already known what John had thought of his father for this now-explained disappearing act, that remark would have been enough to make him want to knock Henry into next week.

“No,” Teal’c rumbled dangerously, which wiped the beginnings of a smirk off Henry’s face. “They are the men whose knowledge and whose actions have kept two galaxies from being overrun by Hell’s forces. They deserve greater honor than any human can bestow.”

“Did you say _galaxies_?” Henry asked faintly.

Teal’c didn’t answer.

Henry looked away and swallowed hard, clearly fighting for composure. “Murray, please, I’ve got to talk to the men who were there when I arrived. They have to be my grandsons. _Please_.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Lam said quietly, coming into the observation room.

Sam and Dean turned to her with a chorused “What?”

“I was just coming to tell you. His DNA’s consistent with being a blood relative—paternal grandfather would fit. And he’s got that strange allele on the seventh chromosome and the ATA gene. No signs that he’s anything but human, and his telomeres are consistent with his being thirty years old, which is about how old he looks.”

“He said he jumped in 1958,” Sam reported.

Lam nodded. “His driver’s license says he was born in 1928, so that fits.” She looked over through the window into the isolation room, where Henry was trying to break Teal’c down with puppy eyes. “That man is your grandfather.”

* * *

Abaddon finally found the door Henry had used to escape from the Men of Letters’ lab and reestablished the portal with ease. Of course the idiot hadn’t thought to place a lock on the other end; from what her host, Josie Sands, knew of him, he never had been terribly skilled at spellwork. Smirking, Abaddon strolled through the portal, assuming that Henry would still be present wherever it came out.

But he wasn’t. The grey, industrial-looking room she stepped out into was empty of humans. She saw a bunk bed and a couple of packs that might have held personal belongings and therefore clues as to which relatives Henry had run off with, but she didn’t have time to search. She needed that box, which meant she needed Henry, and that meant starting the room-by-room approach all over again. Seething, she stepped out into the hall.

Unfortunately, the hall was currently empty, and she had no idea which way to turn. Fortunately, the rooms she passed all had windows in their doors, so she didn’t have to bother with blasting doors down to look inside each room. But they were all empty, too, and every vent she passed that might have led outside was warded. She grew more and more frustrated as she wandered, unable to get her bearings and feeling increasingly trapped.

Finally she turned a corner and heard voices. There were several doors ahead on both sides of the hall, and the voices, which were talking _about_ Henry, were in one room to the right. But there was a door open on the left, so she took a chance on glancing in there before attempting to get information from the humans. Henry might be there, alone and vulnerable, and maybe she could use him as leverage to get out of this place after she’d gotten the box.

That room was empty, too—but it had a huge window that looked out on something Abaddon hadn’t seen since Ra was chased out of Egypt. Curious and confused, she stepped further into the room, drawn toward the window.

When had the humans figured out the _chappa’ai_?

Getting close enough for answers wasn’t going to be possible, however. Abaddon suddenly felt as if she’d walked into a wall, and looking up, she saw a metal devil’s trap bonded to the ceiling. It was strong metal, too, and didn’t bend when she tried to force it to deform without breaking the concrete. And then, before she could try again, someone walked up behind her in the hall.

“Lt. Johansen?” a male voice asked in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

Abaddon rounded on him, her eyes a furious black.

The little man gulped and fell back a step or two. “ _Kah_ —uh— _Exor_ —ah—G-GABRIEL!”

And Gabriel came. His vessel wasn’t much bigger than the man who’d called on him and didn’t look terribly angelic at all, but Abaddon could see the angel inside, one she’d thought had died long ago. He took one look at the scene and manifested his sword with a snarl. “Abaddon.”

There was only one way out of this scenario alive. Abaddon left Josie to her fate and escaped into Hell.

* * *

Gabriel quickly caught Josie as Abaddon’s smoke vanished through the floor. “She’s alive, Walter. Alert the infirmary.”

Walter Harriman, the senior Gate technician who’d found her, grabbed his radio and called for a medical team. “That’s _not_ Lt. Johansen, is it?” he asked then.

“No, TJ’s still on _Destiny_. This lady’s name is Josie Sands.”

“How’d she get here?”

“That’s a good question.”

“It is indeed,” said Landry, coming up behind Walter, “especially since she’s the second uninvited guest to show up in the last half hour. My guess is she followed Henry Winchester, however _he_ got here.”

Gabriel blinked. “Henry? John’s dad? He disappeared in ’58.”

“Yes, well, he reappeared in Sam and Dean’s quarters a short time ago. He’s in isolation, being interrogated by Teal’c.”

“Huh.” Gabriel glanced down at the much taller woman in his arms, but Josie was unconscious and not close enough to the surface that he could glean much from her mind. And he wasn’t about to press and compound the trauma of having been possessed by a major demon like Abaddon.

“As long as you’re here, Gabriel, Dr. Jackson would probably appreciate your help. Mr. Winchester was carrying some kind of artifact, a brass box, but Dr. Jackson can’t get it open or tell us anything about it. The only external carving he can recognize is a....”

“Unicursal hexagram,” Daniel supplied, joining them and holding up the object in question. “Also known as the Aquarian Star.”

“Also known as the symbol of the Men of Letters,” Gabriel noted, glancing at Josie again, “who _also_ disappeared in ’58. Looks like Abaddon crashed the party... and I’d like to know why.”

“Mr. Winchester’s been insisting that he’s a member of the Men of Letters.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he was.”

The medical team arrived then, and Gabriel handed Josie over to be taken to the infirmary.

Daniel looked at the box again as the medics whisked Josie away. “My guess is, Mr. Winchester brought this here for safekeeping. Sure wish I could figure out what it is.”

Gabriel raised one eyebrow. “Have you asked him?”

* * *

“We need to talk to him.”

“No.”

“He’s our grandfather.”

“And Dad _hated_ the _shol’vah_.” Why that had come out in Goa’uld, Dean had no idea, though he had been cussing in that language a lot since his first blending with Dishon. But the word conveyed the precise reason for his disgust well—Henry was, in John’s mind and therefore in Dean’s, a traitor to his family. “Besides, you heard what he thinks of hunters.”

Sam spread his hands. “He’s got information we need, and he’s not going to give it to Teal’c. We have to talk to him.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to him.”

“Dean, you _cannot_ push this one off on Dishon. Henry doesn’t know about the Tok’ra, and he doesn’t have the clearance to find out.”

“All right, then _you_ talk to him.”

“Well, _one_ of you needs to talk to him,” said Gabriel, coming in with Landry and Daniel. “He’s been followed.”

Both brothers frowned as they stood and chorused, “Followed?”

“Yup. Demon called Abaddon—got trapped and smoked out, but she’s seriously bad news, and we need to know what her game plan is. May be able to get something out of her host, but since she’s currently unconscious....”

“We think Abaddon might have been after this,” Daniel added, holding up the box the Marines had taken from Henry. “But I’m drawing a blank on what it is. I can’t get any kind of readings from it at all.”

Dean knew Sam was right about letting Henry know about Dishon, and he did understand why everyone thought he and Sam needed to talk to Henry. He still couldn’t feel anything but contempt for their long-lost grandfather.

Sam huffed. “Okay, I’ll do it.” And he snatched the box out of Daniel’s hand and stalked out of the observation room.

Landry turned to Daniel. “See what information you can find about the night of Mr. Winchester’s disappearance. I’ll go see how things stand in the infirmary.”

Daniel nodded, and both men left.

As Gabriel joined Dean at the window, Sam walked into the isolation room and whispered something to Teal’c, who nodded and withdrew. “Hey,” Sam said to Henry. “I’m Sam.”

Henry looked significantly happier now that Sam was there. “Sam! Henry Winchester. I’m John’s father.” He stood, and they shook hands. “And the man who shot me—”

“My brother. Sorry about that; you kind of took us by surprise.”

“I understand. I hope he won’t hold that against me.”

“Well... to be honest... Dad wasn’t exactly your biggest fan. And my brother’s having trouble seeing past that, not to mention your opinion about hunters.”

Henry frowned. “Wait, what could John—” Then it dawned on him. “I... gather I don’t make it back from this time.”

“We don’t know. All we know is that Dad never saw you again.”

Henry ran a hand over his mouth. “I never meant for this to happen, Sam. But I had no other choice, no other way out.”

“What happened?”

“It was the night of my final initiation into the Men of Letters. A demon, Abaddon, attacked us, and several of the elders were killed. But one of them gave me something—” Henry frowned and started patting his pockets.

Sam held up the box. “This?”

Henry nodded. “Yes. He told me to keep it safe. But I knew I could never get out of the building on foot, so I ran to a lab and performed the spell that brought me here. ‘Blood leads to blood.’ I’d planned to reach John, but... obviously, I missed my mark somehow.”

“Abaddon followed you here.”

Henry paled. “Oh, no.”

Sam held up a hand. “It’s okay. This base is heavily warded. She was trapped and exorcised safely, and her host is in the infirmary right now, getting checked out.”

“Josie? Josie’s alive?!”

“Alive, yeah, but unconscious.”

Henry ran a hand over his mouth again, but this time Dean could see that he was trembling. “Is... will she....”

“If there is anything wrong with her that mortal medicine can cure, trust me, she’ll get the help she needs here.”

Henry sagged in relief. “Thank God. Josie’s one of my best friends; we were kids together, came up through the ranks of the Letters together. I hated seeing her possessed.”

Sam nodded, his eyes unfocusing with memories. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m... I’m sure you did.” Before Henry could ask, though, Sam pulled himself together. “Look, long story short, we need to know what Abaddon wanted. Josie might be able to tell us something when she wakes up, but until then, you’re our best source of information. What was she after? This?” He held up the box again.

Henry shook his head slightly. “Probably.”

“What is it?”

“I have no idea.”

Dean didn’t know whose mental curse at that was louder, his or Dishon’s.

Sam only sighed. “All right, we’ll see if we can find someone who does, someone who survived the attack. Can you give me some names of people who were there that night?”

Henry started rattling off names, and Gabriel frowned and shook his head at each one until Henry named Larry Ganem. Then Gabriel held up a finger and disappeared for a split second. “Ganem survived,” he told Dean when he returned. “I’ll have Inias go get him while I get Josie back on her feet. Go tell those two we’ll have a briefing in fifteen.” And before Dean could object, he was gone again.

 _Dean, be civil_ , Dishon cautioned. _I believe he fully intended to return to your father in the past._

“Look, I don’t care what he intended,” Dean shot back. “His first responsibility was to his family, not to some glorified book club.”

_I don’t disagree. But has it occurred to you that your father’s insistence on putting family first might have been driven by fears evoked by what he perceived as Henry’s abandonment?_

“So?”

_So he may have been overreacting. And so, my dear friend, are you._

Dean rolled his eyes and used the walk from the observation room to the isolation room to get his game face on.

Sam turned in surprise as Dean walked in. “Hey.”

“We’ve been able to locate a survivor,” Dean said, barely sparing a nod for Henry. “Larry Ganem.”

Henry nodded. “Good, good. Larry’s the one who gave me the box. He’ll know what it’s for.”

“Gonna bring him in, get Josie on her feet. Gen. Landry’s gonna want a briefing in about fifteen minutes.”

Sam nodded, but Henry frowned. “I don’t understand. What is this place?”

“Classified,” the brothers chorused.

“But—I have clearance....”

“Not for this, you don’t,” Dean growled.

“We don’t know that yet,” Sam amended. “Until we do, we’re not authorized to tell you anything.”

Henry’s confused frown didn’t let up. “But the other man, Murray... he said you boys are hunters. Have hunters begun working for the government?”

“No,” Dean snapped at the same time Sam said, “Well—” They looked at each other for a moment.

Then Dean sighed and relented. “Hunters, in general, have not. But long story short, there was a situation where they needed us and we needed them, and we worked out an arrangement that works for all of us. Okay? It’s just Sam and me, and sometimes a friend of ours comes in to consult.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Uh, Henry, this is my brother, Dean.”

Dean nodded. “Hi.”

Henry started to hold out his hand for Dean to shake but evidently thought better of it and stuck his hand in his pocket as he nodded back. “Dean. It’s nice to meet you.”

Dean didn’t respond.

“Isn’t there anything unclassified you can tell me?”

Sam shrugged. “Like?”

“Well, what year is it?”

“It’s 2011—November 20, the Sunday before Thanksgiving.”

Henry blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Just over a year. No wonder you’re working for the government.”

“Wrong,” Dean stated flatly before Dishon could express his puzzlement. “The world’s not gonna end in 2012, and the Apocalypse is last year’s news.”

Henry stared. “What?”

Dean indicated Sam and himself with his thumb. “We stopped it.”

Sam nodded once.

Henry blinked a couple of times. “A-are you sure? I mean, it could still—”

“It won’t,” the brothers chorused.

“Trust me,” Dean continued, “we’ve lost too many people tryin’ to save this damn planet, including Dad. We’re not gonna accept failure now.”

“How can you be sure?” Henry pressed.

“ _That_ is classified,” Sam snapped before Dean had a chance. “I don’t care what clearance Landry gives you. There are some things you don’t need or want to know.”

Henry looked shocked at Sam’s shift in tone, but Dean wasn’t. For one thing, talking about it meant talking about what Sam and Salim had done to return Lucifer to the Cage, and neither they nor Dean nor Dishon was anxious to revisit those memories. For another, that was exactly what Dad would have said, and Sam was a whole lot more like Dad than he sometimes wanted to admit. And in this instance, Dean thought Dad’s—er, Sam’s reaction was right on the money. He didn’t want some greenhorn bookworm judging them, even if the man was their grandfather.

“Yes, I do need to know,” Henry insisted. “The Men of Letters are preceptors, beholders, chroniclers of all that man does not understand. We have a responsibility to preserve every piece of knowledge we can find.”

Dean bristled. “Your responsibility was to your family. Dad grew up without you and your precious knowledge; he had to learn everything the hard way. And me and Sam, we didn’t have to start from scratch, but we still had a hell of a lot of trial and error of our own. What good’s knowledge when you lock it away and don’t use it to save your family, huh?”

Henry flinched and turned away without a word.

Dean started to say something more, but Dishon said, _Dean. Leave it. He’s only just learned of your father’s death; to say more now would be cruel._

So Dean crossed his arms and let Henry chew on his point for the moment—not that he felt any more charitable toward his grandfather, but he knew Dishon was right. And he really didn’t want to pick a fight... not a verbal one, anyway. But he did reserve the right to zat Henry again for good cause.


	7. Chapter 6: To Infinity and Beyond!

Sam studied the little box in his hand as he and Dean escorted Henry toward the conference room. Then he looked up and saw that the same star-like design that covered most of the front of the box also adorned Henry’s tie tack. “Henry, what is that?” he asked, pointing to the tie tack.

Henry startled a little and ran a hand over his tie. “It’s our symbol, the Aquarian Star, representing great magic and power. They say it stood at the gates of Atlantis itself.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, and Sam cleared his throat to keep from giving anything away.

But Henry glanced over at Dean, who was still wearing his newly issued SGC uniform jacket, and frowned at the patch on his left shoulder. “Am I allowed to ask what that symbol means?”

Dean just looked at him, his mouth a straight, unimpressed line.

Henry sighed. “I’m sorry. I just... feel very out of my depth here.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” And Dean went back to looking straight ahead.

As they approached the conference room, Sam heard an old man’s voice saying, “This feels like a conference table, Inias. What’s going on here?”

“It is as I told you,” Inias replied. “I brought you here to meet with Henry Winchester about the box you gave him.”

“You could have brought Henry to me!”

“Unfortunately,” Dean said as they walked in, “he’s not the only one who needs that information.”

Sam noted in passing that the window down to the Gateroom had been shuttered. That was good; it wouldn’t do to have Henry asking questions about the Gate if he didn’t have clearance. He was already getting put out by the fact that almost everything he asked about was classified.

The old man, who was seated on the far side of the table and staring into the distance, stiffened. “What are you talking about? Who’s there?”

“Larry,” Henry said, pushing past Dean to go to the old man’s—Larry’s—side. “Larry, it’s me, it’s Henry.”

Larry’s eyes widened, but he turned his head as if tracking by sound and not by sight. “Henry!” He grabbed Henry’s hand as Henry knelt next to his chair, then ran his fingers across Henry’s face quickly. “Henry, thank God, after all these years!”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was trying to reach my son. Instead, I came here, to my grandsons. That was Dean who spoke earlier, and the other man who’s just come in is Sam.”

Larry blinked. “You have grandsons? I... I had no idea. Forgive me; had I known you would be away so long, I would have tried harder to keep in contact. Not that a blind man could have done much for them,” he added bitterly.

Henry sighed. “Your mind matters more than your eyes, my friend. But they seem to be all right. And so is Josie.”

“Josie!”

“Yes, Abaddon followed me here, but someone trapped her and exorcised her. Josie’s all right. She’ll join us in a moment.”

Larry nodded. “Now I see the need for the long table, Inias. Forgive me.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Actually, Mr. Ganem, it’s not just the four of us who need to talk with you.”

Larry frowned. “What do you mean?”

But before Sam could explain, Gabriel came in, supporting a tall woman—the aforementioned Josie, Sam assumed. She’d been given a clean, unmarked uniform to change into, but while she was walking under her own power fairly well, she still looked pretty pale and traumatized. And they were followed a moment later by Landry, Daniel, and Teal’c. Landry shut the door and introduced everyone.

Larry shook his head and sighed. “I’m sorry, Henry, Josie. I... I can’t reveal any secrets in the presence of people who aren’t members of the society.”

Dean and Henry both looked ready to object, but Daniel leaned forward. “No prize is worth attaining if you can never share it,” he said in a tone that made it clearly a quote. “There would be no point.”

Larry frowned. “Where did you read that?”

“I didn’t read it,” Daniel replied. “A very wise man once said it to me. His name was Ernest Littlefield.”

Larry, Henry, and Josie all looked shocked at that.

Landry inclined his head. “Perhaps you could tell us what you know about Dr. Littlefield, Mr. Ganem.”

Henry looked over at Larry. “Wasn’t he a friend of Dad’s?”

Larry nodded. “It’s not particularly a secret, at least from our end. Ernie was working with a man named Langford, an archaeologist. Langford had uncovered an artifact in Giza in 1923, the, uh... ‘Doorway to Heaven.’”

Josie looked even more startled and glanced toward the covered window. “The _chappa’ai_ ,” she whispered and shuddered.

Landry clearly noticed, but all he said was, “Please continue, Mr. Ganem.”

Larry leaned back in his chair a little. “The government took an interest in the Doorway in the early part of 1945, and they asked Langford to see if he could get it working, just in case it could be used as a weapon of some kind. Langford wanted to be sure there was no danger of the Doorway causing supernatural problems, since it had been buried shortly after the Egyptians revolted against the god-king Ra.”

“So he approached the Men of Letters?” Sam asked.

“Yes. Ernie was more of an Egyptologist than the rest of us, so he took the case. I gather there was a bit of a spark between him and Langford’s daughter, as well,” Larry added with a wry chuckle. “But it wasn’t to be. The researchers had difficulty powering the Doorway without overloading the generators they were using, and one day there was an explosion in the lab. Ernie was killed, and the program was abandoned.”

“That was what Dr. Langford told his daughter,” said Landry. “But we happen to have some footage of the final test.”

He pressed a button on a remote, and sepia-toned footage began to play on the big monitor at the far end of the table, showing technicians manually dialing the Gate. Sam wasn’t sure whether he or Salim was the more intrigued by the process or the more impressed by the fact that the researchers successfully got a lock, and they both felt a mixture of amusement and horror when one of the scientists, who looked a little like their Atlantis colleague Dr. Carson Beckett, handed off his clipboard and accepted a jumpsuit and diving helmet.

But Henry leaned forward and pointed to the screen. “That man. That’s Dr. Littlefield.”

“You recognize him?” Landry asked.

Henry nodded. “I was still in high school, but I remember him. We’d met a few times.”

“What’s happening?” Larry asked. “I can’t tell what I’m hearing.”

“The Doorway looks like it’s filled with a huge pool of rippling water—but it’s vertical. Dr. Littlefield’s put on a diving suit, and they’re attaching the oxygen hose. Now he’s walking into the pool....”

On the film, the Gate shut down, cutting Littlefield’s lifeline. Henry and Josie gasped, and the film ended.

“What?” Larry demanded.

Henry shook his head. “The pool... it just vanished. And Dr. Littlefield with it.”

“It wasn’t a pool,” Daniel explained. “It was a portal. We got the artifact working again in the mid-’90s and used the film to figure out where the portal led.”

Larry frowned. “Which was?”

“A repository of ancient knowledge so advanced, it was mind-boggling. He’d spent fifty-two years exploring it and still barely scratched the surface.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because we brought him back. Him and his journal. I recorded as much of the information as I could on video, but we arrived just before a major storm that was about to destroy our only means of returning home. I tried to convince the others to let me stay and keep working, but in the end, Dr. Littlefield helped get me to leave.” Daniel sighed. “We tried to go back after the storm, but the portal wouldn’t connect.”

“We are still studying the information we were able to retrieve,” Teal’c noted. “But Ernest Littlefield was correct. We could have gained nothing from that repository if Daniel Jackson had chosen to remain and continue his study, for we would have had no way to renew contact.”

Larry’s sightless eyes dropped toward the middle of the table for a long moment, and then he sighed heavily. “Where is the box, Henry?”

“In safe hands,” Henry replied, sparing Sam a tiny smile.

Larry nodded. “Can someone hand me some paper and a pen?”

Daniel slid his notepad and pen across to him.

“Inside the box is the key to every book, object, scroll, spell collected for thousands of years under one roof. It is the supernatural mother lode.”

“And Abaddon wants the key to get to that knowledge?” Daniel asked.

Josie nodded a little. “Mainly, she wanted all of us dead.”

Larry scoffed. “Abaddon was a hired gun. But that knowledge... can you imagine what she would do with that?”

“So how do we stop her?” Dean asked.

“You don’t.” Larry felt for the pen and wrote down a set of coordinates. “Take the key to this location. Then throw it inside, shut the door forever, and walk away.”

“Why?” all the other humans in the room chorused with varying levels of horrified confusion.

“Because it is the safest place on earth, warded against all forms of evil and impervious to any entry except by the key. We cannot let Abaddon have it.”

Sam, Henry, and Daniel all looked ready to protest, but Landry held up a hand. “We’ll see to it that the secrets of the Men of Letters are well guarded, Mr. Ganem. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Larry nodded. Then he took a deep breath and raised his head, turning it a little as if listening for something. “Inias?”

“May I take him home now, Hank?” Inias asked Landry.

Landry nodded. “You may. Thank you, Inias.”

Inias put a gentle hand on Larry’s shoulder, and they vanished.

Daniel turned to Landry. “General, surely you’re not—”

“One thing at a time, Doctor,” Landry interrupted. “I have a few questions for Miss Sands first.”

Josie drew in a ragged breath and nodded. “Yes, sir?”

“How did you know the word _chappa’ai_?”

She gestured toward the window. “Abaddon saw it. She was surprised you’d gotten it working.”

That was met with a chorus of groans and curses.

“Why did Abaddon attack the Men of Letters?” Landry pressed.

Josie shrugged. “Like Larry said, she was hired. Not that she needed much convincing; she was already ticked off about some experiments I’d been helping to record. A priest in St. Louis was trying to find a way to cure demons. And when he found it... she killed him. He’s the one who told her about me.”

“So who hired her?” Henry asked.

Josie shook her head. “All I got was a name. Zachariah.”

Sam, Dean, and Gabriel all swore at that.

But before the conversation could continue, Inias returned, looking frazzled. “He’s dead.”

“What?!” everyone exploded.

Inias slumped down in the chair Larry had vacated. “I was on my way back here when I sensed Abaddon approaching the Ganem house. I turned back and found her possessing his wife, but she killed him and fled before I could stop her.”

Dean uttered a sharp Goa’uld curse.

“Did she learn anything from him?” Gabriel asked.

Inias shook his head. “There wasn’t time. I’m sure of that.”

Landry turned to Josie. “Did she already know what the box is?”

“No,” Josie replied. “She knew the box was important enough for Henry to run with it, but that’s all.”

“So she doesn’t know about this... repository of knowledge?”

“No. As far as she knew, all the members lived in Normal and were going to be at the initiation that night.”

Sam looked at what Larry had written. “These coordinates are in Kansas, I think.”

Gabriel nodded once. “All right, we’ll work with what we have. Heaven can handle Abaddon. But since she knows about the Stargate, it’s a cinch she’s going to head up these demons that are working with the Lucian Alliance.” He snapped his fingers, and Henry and Josie gasped in pain. “That gets you two off her radar, so as far as she knows, you and the box are still here, and she can’t get to you. That frees you and these muttonheads”—here he pointed to Sam and Dean—“up to go check out that repository and find out why Zach was so anxious to keep John and the boys away from it.”

Henry’s eyes widened. “Wait, why would—”

“Get the boys to explain it tomorrow. And Hank, there’s a chance she’ll make a play for Homeworld Command before we can catch up to her.”

Landry nodded. “I’ll alert the Pentagon. Dr. Jackson, please see to it that Mr. Winchester and Miss Sands sign non-disclosure agreements and give them the standard video briefing. Teal’c, see to their quarters.”

“Yes, sir,” Daniel replied as Teal’c bowed his head in acknowledgement.

Henry looked even more confused. “Whoa, what—but—”

Landry turned to him with a hint of a smile. “Your initiation’s been rewritten, Mr. Winchester. We’ll need help from you and Miss Sands, so to save your grandsons the trouble of telling you everything, Dr. Jackson will bring you up to speed on the Stargate program. You’ll have time enough to catch up on everything else later.”

Dean reached for the notepad with the coordinates. “We takin’ the _Hammond_ or....”

“No, I’m afraid the _General Hammond_ ’s unavailable. But if that location’s in Kansas and you’re on your way to Sioux Falls in the morning, I expect you can drive!”

Startled, Dean glanced at Josie and Henry and pulled an _Oh, MAN!_ face, then looked away and seemed to discuss something with Dishon for a moment.

 _He wasn’t expecting to have to spend so much time with your grandfather_ , Salim realized.

 _Or to bring him with us to Bobby’s for Thanksgiving_ , Sam agreed. _Never mind Josie—I mean, she seems pretty nice, but she’s a total stranger._

Salim hummed thoughtfully. _Well, perhaps Bobby can help provide more of a buffer between Dean and Henry. And perhaps he can help them see eye to eye, at least a little better._

Sam glanced at Henry and back at Dean. _I sure hope so. Might help me like the guy a little better, too._

“Dean,” Gabriel said, pulling Dean out of his internal conversation. “See you Thursday?”

Dean nodded. “Uh, yeah, sure. And bring Cas.”

Gabriel chuckled.

Landry nodded once. “All right, people. Dismissed.”

As the angels disappeared and Daniel and Teal’c took charge of Henry and Josie, Dean stood and stalked out of the room. Sam gathered up the coordinates and started after him, but he wasn’t able to catch up before Dean disappeared into the elevator. So Sam waited impatiently for the elevator to return, then headed toward their quarters—but Dean wasn’t there when he arrived. Cursing, he dropped the notepad on the desk and ran back toward the elevator, trying to figure out where Dean might have gone.

 _Does he remember that you did not drive back when last you were here?_ Salim asked.

Sam frowned. _He—he should...._ But they both knew Dean’s tendency to act without thinking when his emotions were getting the better of him, and he’d been handed a hell of a lot of shocks in one day. So on Salim’s hunch, Sam headed up to the main entrance.

And sure enough, Dean was standing just outside the door, looking lost and shivering a little in the frosty air.

“Dude,” Sam said as he came up behind his brother. “What are you....”

“She’s not here,” Dean said miserably. “I forgot.”

“Who, Lisa?”

“Baby.”

Sam’s heart sank. “Seriously? You were gonna sleep in the car in weather like _this?_ ”

Dean just looked at him, weary and heartsick.

Sam sighed. “C’mon. Let’s get some coffee and rest inside where it’s warm, okay? You’ll see Baby... tomorrow or the day after, depending on how far out of the way we have to go to get to the Men of Letters’ hideout. Lisa, too. And Bobby’ll be here in the morning.”

Dean’s answering sigh seemed to come from somewhere around his toes. “Okay.”

“Hey.” And Sam pulled Dean into a hug.

Dean returned it and relaxed for several seconds before pulling back with a grumbled “Get off me, you giant girl.”

Sam huffed and let go but smiled, knowing that meant Dean was feeling at least slightly better. And they stayed in step all the way to the mess hall, where the cook had saved Dean the last piece of pie.

* * *

There were two things Dean couldn’t do anymore now that he was Tok’ra again: sleep normally and get drunk. He could, however, let his mind rest while Dishon was driving, and on this particular night, Dishon not only encouraged him to do so but also, when he had trouble, gave him the push he would ordinarily have sought from a bottle of Jack. As a result, he wasn’t hung over when Dishon woke him the next morning... but he didn’t feel any better about anything.

At least, he didn’t until Salim informed him that they’d found the location of the coordinates, which was in Lebanon, Kansas, and wouldn’t add more than a couple of hours to their overall drive time, and that Bobby was waiting for them in the mess hall. Dean barely waited long enough to tie his boots before heading for the elevator—with Sam at his side this time.

Sure enough, Bobby was sitting right by the door, nursing a cup of coffee, and got up to hug them both when they came in. As they sat down, though, he looked at Dean. “Hell, son, didn’t you sleep at all last night?”

Dean sighed. “Yeah, Dishon made me. Didn’t help.”

“What’s goin’ on?”

Sam got their trays as Dean got Bobby caught up. As he finished, he shook his head. “I just... Bobby, I don’t know what to do.”

Bobby gave a facial shrug. “Way the hell above my pay grade, son.”

“Oh, _thanks_.”

But before they could continue talking it over, Daniel and Teal’c came in with Henry and Josie, both of whom looked exhausted, pale, and very badly shaken. They’d probably been up all night, and Dean realized Daniel must have given them a lot more than the standard ‘aliens are real’ rundown. Teal’c shepherded them through the line to get breakfast, but Henry ordered only coffee and toast, and Josie didn’t get anything but tea.

For the first time, Dean actually felt kind of sorry for his grandfather.

“Hey,” he said to Henry as the four newcomers sat down at the hunters’ table. “How you holdin’ up?”

Henry met his eyes and sighed. “I understand now what Sam meant about things I shouldn’t know.”

“You okay?”

“I don’t know. Dean, I don’t understand. Your being hunters is one thing, but how could you and Sam accept possession?”

Sam’s eyes flashed furiously. “Tok’ra blending is wholly unlike possession,” Salim snarled, startling Henry and Josie badly. “I will _never_ treat Sam the way Lucifer did.”

“Uh, Henry, Josie, this is Salim,” Dean explained. “He’s Sam’s symbiote. This is our friend Bobby Singer, and—” He broke off and stepped back. “Greetings, Henry Winchester,” Dishon said as he brought Dean’s head up. “My name is Dishon.”

Dean couldn’t tell who was more likely to faint, Henry or Josie.

“Uh, sorry, guys,” Daniel said, plainly feeling awkward. “I thought a clinical description of the Apocalypse would save you having to explain it later.”

Bobby smiled. “Don’t worry about it. I’da done the same thing. These idjits are just a little raw this mornin’, that’s all.”

Teal’c quirked an eyebrow. “Indeed.”

Henry pulled himself together and pressed on. “You say it’s nothing like possession, yet you speak with my grandson’s voice.”

Dean mentally rolled his eyes.

“The Tok’ra do not suppress the host’s consciousness,” Salim stated flatly. “Sam is aware and can take back control at any time. He can even—” His head bobbed. “—finish his sentences for him,” Sam concluded. “Not that we do that often, except to show off, but it does demonstrate just how conscious I am even when Salim’s in control.”

“We’ve saved their lives,” Dean added, “and they’ve saved ours, enough times that I think we’ve all lost count. And the only time they’ve done something without our consent, it was to save Gabriel’s life.”

“The Goa’uld are like demons. They even tell their human subjects that nothing of the host survives, just to justify stealing meatsuits. But the Tok’ra aren’t like that. They _choose_ not to dominate.”

“Give it some time,” Bobby recommended, seeing that Henry was still skeptical. “You’ve had a hell of a lot dropped on you the last few hours. Gonna take some time to get a handle on all of it, I know. But I’ll tell you this: if I thought these two were a problem, I’da killed ’em both a long time ago.”

Henry sighed unhappily and picked at his toast.

Dean frowned at Bobby. “How the hell did you expect to do that?”

Bobby’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, I’da figured something out, believe me.”

Which meant, Dean knew, that even if the thought had crossed Bobby’s mind, he’d dismissed it as soon as Salim had healed his back and restored his legs. Dean couldn’t help smiling fondly at him.

The rest of the meal was pretty quiet, as was the entire drive to Lebanon. Henry and Josie really had been up all night, so they were asleep before the Chevelle even reached the Colorado Springs city limits. Sam was stuck in the back with them, and even if Dean had felt talkative, Bobby didn’t have much news that they hadn’t already gotten at the SGC or any advice on how to handle Henry or Ben. Bobby stopped for gas and picked up lunch at a drive-through, but otherwise, they drove straight through until they reached the location Larry had given them.

Dean didn’t think much of the place as the five travelers piled out. All he could see was an old, maybe Depression-era, dam or power plant or something on the hill above them and a short set of stairs that led down to a door set in a bricked archway. Sam got the box open but offered to let Henry do the honors; Josie went in first, followed by Dean, Sam, Henry, and Bobby. The door opened into a short hall, which led to a balcony overlooking a much larger space. Said balcony led to what looked like a hall to the left and a staircase to the right.

Josie shone her flashlight around quickly as she reached the balcony. “I don’t see a switch. Maybe there’s a breaker box downstairs.” And she turned right and started down.

But the brothers paused at the top of the stairs, recognizing a familiar hum in the back of their minds.

“What?” Henry asked, stopping beside them. “What are you... sensing?” The pause must have meant that he’d sensed it as well.

“There’s Ancient tech in here,” Dean replied quietly. Glancing around didn’t tell him much, though. _On_ , he commanded.

The lights flared to life, revealing a mid-century command center at the bottom of the staircase, complete with lighted map table.

“Huh,” said Sam. “I would have thought it would start automatically. It does most places.”

Dean shook his head and started down the stairs, with the other men on his heels. “No, no, whoever built this place must have known non-gene carriers like Josie would be using it.”

“So dual controls, one set for the non-carriers and one set—”

“—for the legacies,” they concluded together and looked at Henry.

Henry gulped. “I-I-I don’t understand. What are you talking about? What gene?”

“The Ancient Technology Activation gene,” Sam explained. “People who have it can operate certain kinds of alien technology, even with mental commands. That’s how Dean turned the lights on. That... that buzz in the back of your head? That’s the tech’s neural interface, letting you know it’s there.”

“What buzz?” Josie asked. “I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s ’cause you don’t have the gene. The tests you had at the SGC showed that, but this just confirms it. We do—in fact, Dean and I got it from both sides of the family.”

Dean frowned. “But here’s the thing. Okay, assuming that one of the Men of Letters who built this place was an Ancient, like Janus or somebody... what are the odds of the other Men of Letters, besides Henry’s dad, having the ATA gene?”

Sam shrugged. “Probably pretty slim.”

“So why even put in the Ancient controls in the first place?”

“Maybe this place wasn’t built just to protect knowledge. Maybe it was built partly to protect us.”

“Well, I think I know where we might be able to find out,” Henry said and walked past Sam and Dean toward another room that Dean hadn’t really looked at yet... a beautiful Depression-era library.

Bobby whistled, and Sam let an appreciative Goa’uld curse slip.

Dean nodded. “Sammy, I think we found the Batcave.”

As Henry made his way to the card catalogue and started flipping through it, the others began roaming through the library, glancing at shelves and examining artifacts. Dean, however, kept looking at the architecture, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu.

 _Does this place remind you of anything?_ he finally asked Dishon.

 _Somewhat_ , Dishon replied. _I suspect strongly that whichever Ancient helped build it was Lantean, but I have no idea how that might be._

_Maybe he was like Merlin, ascended for a while and then descended to join the Men of Letters._

Dishon pondered the idea. _Yes, that could be._

“Dean,” Sam said and motioned Dean over to a bookcase toward the back of the room, near an alcove that inexplicably housed a telescope. “Look at these.”

Dean looked at the books Sam was pointing out and frowned. “They’re in Ancient.”

“In ancient?” Josie echoed, joining them. “What does that mean?”

Sam ran his finger down one of the spines, showing the gilded title that would look like just a pretty geometric pattern to the untrained eye. “The language of the Ancients, the Gate-builders.”

“I might have something,” Henry stated, and they all turned to look at him and he at them. “And you’re in the right area, I think. See if you can find the journal of James Haggerty.”

Sam started skimming spines but stopped before he reached the end of the Ancient section. “ _Huh_.”

“What?” everyone else asked.

“This book—the title’s in two languages. In English, it says _Journal of James Haggerty_ , but there’s Ancient on either side... no, it’s not a title, it’s a message. ‘For those with eyes to read: The journal of James Haggerty, born Janus of Atlantis.’”

Dean uttered a surprised Goa’uld curse. “So it _was_ Janus. Explains a lot.”

“Explains a _hell_ of a lot, including why this place is so well hidden. And the power—you think maybe they’ve got a ZPM?”

“I think,” Bobby interrupted, “we ought to take this one journal and get this show on the road. Somethin’ tells me we ain’t gonna make it to Thanksgiving without any more trouble from Abaddon, and the sooner we get back to Sioux Falls, the better I’m gonna sleep.”

“But—” Henry objected, but Sam immediately pulled the journal off the shelf, and he and Dean started toward the stairs.

“If Bobby’s turning down time in a new library,” Sam stated, “it means we need to go.”

“But we’ve only just—”

“Landry promised Larry we’d keep the place safe,” Dean said. “Best way to do that is to stay away from it until we know we’ve got Abaddon stopped. Come on. We can come back later.”

“But Gabriel—”

“Gabriel hid you guys, I’m guessin’ the same way Cas hid us, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t followed. Let’s _go_.”

Sam grabbed Henry telekinetically and started pulling him with them toward the exit. Josie hurried to catch up. Sam also grabbed the key out of Henry’s pocket and tossed it to Dean, who waited long enough for Josie to clear the door before thinking Off and locking the door behind them.

* * *

The boys spent the drive back to Sioux Falls explaining to Henry and Josie how the last Ancient out of Atlantis had come to be revered as the god of doors and transitions, what the SGC knew of Janus’ inventions and experiments, and why it might make sense for Janus to have hidden himself on Earth as this James Haggerty character. Bobby tuned them out, keeping an ear out for his phone but otherwise keeping his whole focus on the road. He didn’t know why he had such a strong sense that they needed to keep clear of the bunker for the time being, although part of it might have been worry for Lisa and Ben. But there was something his gut was telling him about Ancients, some kind of danger that had come up before....

“Y’know, I wonder if there’s stuff stashed in there that’s not even in the Atlantis database,” Sam was saying.

“What,” Dean asked, “like, stuff the SGC can use? Stuff Janus developed after he came back to Earth?”

“Yeah. I mean, like, when Daniel and McKay found his lab in Atlantis, they found out how to manufacture the communication stones—”

Bobby suddenly swore. “That’s it. Those stones. If Abaddon can get someone into the Pentagon....”

“ _Destiny_ ,” the boys chorused and lunged for their phones.

Sam called O’Neill; Dean called Cas. It was a testament to how well Bobby knew Cas that he didn’t drive off the road when Cas unceremoniously appeared in the middle of the front seat. But the angels hadn’t encountered any demons trying to get into the Pentagon, and O’Neill said the next scheduled stone use wasn’t until Wednesday. So with Cas being duly warned, Bobby pushed on home.

No sooner had they arrived, though, than Dean grabbed his and Sam’s pack and announced, “We’ll be at Lisa’s.” And before Bobby could do more than sigh, the boys were headed to the Impala with Janus’ journal in tow.

“Was it something I said?” Henry asked meekly.

Bobby sighed again. “Well, my house ain’t as big as it looks”—never mind that it had housed as many as six guests more than once. “And Dean’s girlfriend lives here in town. He probably figured it’d be easier on everyone if they gave y’all a little more space.”

Henry nodded sadly.

“Been a long day. We’d best head inside, let y’all get to bed.”

Henry and Josie both wearily agreed to that. Bobby put her in the boys’ room and him on the couch, and they were both asleep before Bobby could even bring himself to consider letting Josie borrow one of his late wife Karen’s winter nightgowns.

Tuesday was slow. Sam got to work scanning Janus’ journal so he could make secure copies—one for Bobby, one for the SGC—and Dean decided to avoid everything by helping Lisa get an early start on her part of Thanksgiving dinner. That left Bobby to take Henry and Josie shopping for clothes and necessities and to help them get caught up on everything they’d missed in the last fifty-odd years. While Josie chose to explore the Internet cautiously, Henry pressed Bobby for particulars about John and about the boys’ childhood, and Bobby filled in all the gaps he safely could.

Then, just to be on the safe side, he locked the Chevelle’s steering wheel and removed the starters from all his other vehicles that would run. Henry was still there Wednesday morning, so Bobby assumed the precaution had either worked or been unnecessary.

After breakfast, Bobby gave Henry and Josie permission to browse his library and went to Lisa’s to check on the boys. And it was a good thing he did, because he hadn’t been there two minutes when Samandiriel showed up.

“It’s started,” the angel said and zapped the three hunters to Washington without any further explanation.

“Hey, whoa!” Dean yelped. “What the hell’s going on?”

A quick glance around told Bobby they were outside the Pentagon. “Abaddon’s tryin’ for the stones?”

Samandiriel nodded. “We don’t know whether she’s disabled any of the wards in the building, or if she even can, but she has warded the building against angels. If she or another demon gets past us, we will need you to pursue it.”

Sam nodded once. “All right, look, can you use a radio?”

“I believe so.”

“Awesome. Why don’t we go on in to Homeworld Command, try to beef up the wards, that kind of thing, and you can radio us if something comes through.”

“Very well—”

But Samandiriel didn’t have a chance to finish his thought. A horde of demons appeared, and a host of angels revealed themselves in a defensive line around the building. In no time flat, the battle was on.

“GO!” Samandiriel yelled and ran to join the fray.

Bobby and the boys sprinted inside and made their way to Homeworld Command as fast as they could.

“Who’s scheduled to use the stones today?” Dean demanded as soon as they blew through the door.

“Dr. Dacosta,” the receptionist replied. “She’s been here since 7, but she’ll be leaving for _Destiny_ any minute.”

“Uh-oh,” Sam stated, looking up at the ceiling, and pointed upward. The ceiling tile above the doorway that bore a devil’s trap was cracked.

Bobby and Dean swore, and all three hunters charged toward the stone room, where Dr. Dacosta was indeed waiting, a palm-sized smooth black stone sitting on a lighted base on the desk in front of her. She looked up and smirked, her eyes going black. “Well, well. I didn’t believe it. The Winchester boys _are_ back on Earth.”

“And you’re stayin’ here,” Dean snarled.

She laughed. “You can’t make me.”

“We’ll see about that.”

The demon lunged toward the stone. Sam threw her backward telekinetically, and Bobby snatched the stone off its base...

... too slowly, as a split second after his hand touched it, he felt a jolt and was suddenly looking at a completely different room. A quiet curse slipped out—and he cringed at the female voice it had come out in.

A tall blonde in a black uniform who looked eerily like Josie—T. Johansen, her nametag said, and the collar insignia proclaimed her a first lieutenant—looked at him warily. “Dr. Dacosta?”

“’Fraid not,” Bobby replied. “Name’s Bobby Singer. We had a slight problem at Homeworld Command... Dr. Dacosta’s got an uninvited passenger. I was tryin’ to get that black stone off its base to keep the demon from gettin’ here.”

“Excuse me,” said an educated Scotsman’s voice, and Bobby turned the head he was borrowing to see a scruffy, scrawny, slightly long-haired fellow frowning at him. “Mr. Singer? My name is Nicholas Rush—we’ve not met, exactly, but I was at Homeworld Command....”

“During the Niveus raid, right,” Bobby interrupted with a nod. “So that’s what you look like for real.”

Lt. Johansen slapped a hand over her eyes. “ _Mister_ Singer. Chloe’s probably seriously freaking out.”

Bobby grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Mr. Singer,” Rush continued, “are you suggesting that demons are trying to infiltrate _Destiny_?”

“Not suggesting, telling. It’s a _long_ story.”

“How would they even know about us?”

“We can’t be too sure about anything, but near as we can tell, this particular group of demons has been workin’ with the Lucian Alliance.”

Lt. Johansen looked at Rush in alarm, but Rush shook his head with an incredulous laugh. “I can’t believe I’m about to ask this, but... how do we stop them?”

“Well, we’re doin’ what we can on our end, but there are a couple of precautions you can take. Got a piece of paper?”

“Yeah, sure.” Rush fished a notebook and pencil out of his vest pocket and handed them to Bobby.

Bobby flipped to a blank page and began drawing a basic devil’s trap. “First line of defense, draw one of these in here and another one around the Stargate. I’d suggest tryin’ to etch it into the metal, as deep as you can, maybe fill it with salt if you’ve got any.” After he’d finished that drawing, he moved on to the anti-possession sigil. “This one you can use to make necklaces, or even tattoo it over the heart. Prevents possession, in case one of ’em smokes out or tries to ride one of your people back from Earth.” Once that sketch was done, he wrote Gabriel’s Enochian exorcism at the bottom of the page. “And this should send ’em back where they came from, even from here. Pronounce it like ecclesiastical Latin.” With that, he handed the notebook back to Rush.

Lt. Johansen bit her lip. “Is... will Chloe....”

“Ah, she’ll be all right,” Bobby replied. “My boys are with her. She’s safe enough. But I probably should be gettin’ back.”

She nodded. “We can end the connection from here.”

“Er, thank you, Mr. Singer,” Rush said awkwardly.

Bobby nodded in acknowledgment, and Lt. Johansen flipped a switch. There was another jolt, and he found himself back on Earth, Dean just finishing the Latin exorcism and Sam keeping the demon’s host pinned to the far wall of the stone room. As Dean uttered the final word, the demon shrieked and billowed out of Dr. Dacosta, and Sam quickly caught the poor woman as she collapsed against his telekinetic force. Bobby set the stone in its case and switched off the base.

Once everybody had caught their breath, Dean looked over at Bobby with a disbelieving grin. “Chloe?!”

“Shut up. Idjit.”

Sam grinned and Dean threw back his head and laughed, and Bobby could almost swear he heard the damn Tok’ra laughing with him.


	8. Chapter 7: Sloop John B

Henry came back into the house slowly, defeated, as if his limbs were as leaden as his heart felt. He couldn’t even meet Josie’s eyes as he sat down hard on the couch.

“What’s the matter?” she asked from behind Bobby’s computer.

“Bobby’s done something to all his cars,” he replied. “Took the... starters, I guess. No idea where they could be. And even so... I can hotwire a car in nothing flat, but I don’t know how to put the starter back in. Not these new ones.”

“Where were you thinking of going?”

“To find a hoodoo shop.” He put his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands, willing the tears not to fall.

She got up and came over to sit beside him. “What brought this on?”

“Millie’s dead. Died before Sam was even born.” He hauled in a ragged breath. “And John—” He stopped when his voice broke.

“Oh, Henry.” She started rubbing his back slowly, lightly, gently. “I’m sorry.”

“I was... going to... t-try to go back, half an hour b-before....” His throat choked shut.

“It wouldn’t have been any use,” she replied sadly. “They already knew somehow, but they thought they could exorcise me. They... were ready for her when she went in. At least they... they thought they were. They didn’t realize how strong she was.”

“Y-you mean you were—”

“Yeah. Since Milton.”

That did it. He couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. And she rested her head against his and moved her arm up around his shoulders, sharing his sorrow and offering the comfort of friendship. At least, he thought that was all it was.

Until she pressed the tiniest kiss onto his ear.

There was practically nothing sensual about it, but with his emotions already in an uproar, that one small gesture sent him further into a tailspin. He’d always known how Josie felt about him. He wasn’t blind. In fact, he’d felt the same about her once—maybe all along, if he were absolutely honest.

She kissed him again, longer but still with no heat, on his temple... a caring kiss, not a passionate one.

He hiccupped and turned his head to look her in the eye. “Josie....”

Her eyes were still full of compassion as she wiped the tears from his chin with one finger. And then she kissed him on the mouth.

It would be so simple to go along, to pretend she’d been his only love and that he’d never been fond of Millie. But that wasn’t true. He _had_ loved Millie, just as much as he’d loved Josie. He never had fully made up his mind between them. In the end, his father counseled against marrying another member of the Letters, and Henry had seen the wisdom of that and proposed to Millie. Still, that didn’t mean he’d ever stopped loving Josie.

She kissed him again.

And he _did_ love her, he did. There was no sense denying it. Especially when she was here and safe and warm and real and familiar, the only thing he really knew in this world of tiny computers and alien grandsons and portals to other planets, angels and demons and an Apocalypse that didn’t happen. She was solid, she was grounding, she was...

... not his wife, his wife whom he’d loved in truth, who’d gone on with her life and died without ever knowing what had become of him. Was this a betrayal of his plighted troth, to have her rival in his arms so soon after he’d learned she was gone? Or would she have wanted him to move on with Josie if she’d known what really happened?

Wrong or right, wrong or right, round and round his thoughts whirled endlessly to no conclusion, leaving his arms and his mouth to move of their own accord. Josie, Millie, Josie, Millie, Josie, Josie, Josie....

They were still kissing ten minutes later when Bobby cleared his throat, causing them to jump apart with a gasp.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Bobby said, “but I’m about to have some work for y’all. Abaddon just tried for the stones. We need to work out how she got someone past the wards and how to keep it from happening again.”

Henry coughed and straightened to face Bobby fully. “Uh. Right. How, um... how’s Sam coming on Janus’ journal?”

“I’ll let you talk that over with him here in a minute, once you’ve got your breath.” Bobby’s stern expression was belied by the twinkle in his eyes as he went upstairs.

Dragging in a deep breath, Henry pushed himself up off the couch and paced toward the bookcases on the other side of the room. “I’m sorry, Josie. I just... i-it’s too soon. I mean, Millie and John may have been dead for years, but I _just_ lost them.”

To her credit, Josie didn’t try to follow. “Okay. I can’t say I’m sorry, but I do understand. Just... look, I have no reason to go back to ’58. Abaddon made sure of that. There’s nothing back there that I can’t have just as easily here... e-except... maybe one.”

He turned back to her, frowning slightly in confusion. “Is—are you asking me to stay here for _your_ sake?”

She spread her hands. “It’s something to think about. But just _one_ thing. I mean, we’ve got your grandsons; we’ve got the Stargate program; we’ve got the bunker....”

He sighed heavily. “Let me get through the holidays, all right? Thanksgiving, at least. Let me do that much grieving before I have to... figure out... about us.”

She sighed a little and nodded. “Sure. All right.”

They were interrupted again by a disgusted groan, and Henry turned to see Dean spinning on his heels and walking out of the house again. Sam cleared his throat, circled his finger around his mouth, and mouthed _Lipstick_ before going after his brother. Josie burst into a fit of giggles, and a few giggles escaped from Henry as well as he fumbled for his handkerchief to wipe his face.

* * *

“Dean!”

Dean stopped and turned to find Sam jogging after him. He decided not to pretend he didn’t know what Sam wanted and just get it out in the open now. “He’s our _grandfather!_ ”

“And she’s the only person he knows who’s still alive! I mean, think about it. Say... you and Teyla went through a wormhole that got hit with a solar flare and ended up stranded together.”

“I’d never hook up with _Teyla_ , man! If Sheppard didn’t kill me, Ronon would.”

“Okay, bad example. Say, me and Sarah Blake.”

Dean blinked. “Sarah Blake? I thought you decided you were just friends.”

Sam spread his arms. “That’s my point. I mean, okay, yeah, I know you’d be doing everything you could to get us back, but by the time you found us, if we’d hooked up, even married....”

“Dude, it’s not like you’re married now.”

“Well, neither is Henry, not legally. Do you even remember our grandmother?”

Dean hesitated. “No.”

“So... I’m just saying, things happen. _Life_ happens. We can’t... expect him to be a monk just because he’s Dad’s dad. Yeah, chronologically, he’s 83, but physically, mentally, he’s only 30. And especially if you take Hell years into account....” Sam didn’t need to finish the thought with more than a shrug and a grimace.

 _And Josie is a very beautiful woman_ , Dishon added.

Dean couldn’t help groaning. “Don’t _you_ start.”

_Just an observation._

“Yeah, well, keep your observations to yourself, especially in front of Lisa.”

Dishon snickered, which didn’t help.

Sam huffed. “Look, if you have to, forget he’s our grandfather. He’s a guy our age who needs our help. Okay? And we need his help, and you rolling your eyes every time he looks at Josie isn’t going to make things any easier.”

Dean ran a hand over his mouth as he turned away, trying to get a handle on his emotions. Part of him knew Sam was right. Henry was younger than they were—younger than Dad had been when Mom died. But... honestly... he was having a hard enough time just having Henry around, knowing who he was, what he thought of hunters, what Dad had thought of him, all that. Much as Dean might _like_ to pretend Henry wasn’t blood, he didn’t know if he could. And he didn’t know if he could get past not only the idea of his grandfather still having... _those kinds of feelings_ but also the betrayal of his having them for someone who wasn’t their grandmother.

It was just nine kinds of awkward, and Dean didn’t want to deal with it. At all.

“Dean. We need to see if Josie can tell us anything about Abaddon’s game plan.”

Dean sighed but didn’t turn around. “I know. I know. Just... give me a minute.”

Sam hesitated a moment before saying, “Okay.” And Dean felt more than heard him go back toward the house.

 _You cannot avoid them forever_ , Dishon stated.

Dean sighed. “You think I don’t know that?”

_So why are you acting like a child?_

“Look, you have _no concept_ of what this is like for a human, all right? You’re a snake. Yeah, you’re inside my head; you know everything I know. But I don’t think you understand.”

_No, I think I do. You want him to love you._

Dean swallowed hard.

_Dean, he barely knows you. He may not give his heart so easily as you do._

Dean physically flinched. “What the hell are you—”

_Listen to me. Josie he knows and cares for, but that doesn’t mean he has no room in his heart for you and Sam. He is aware that you are kin, but as yet, he has no relationship with you. That doesn’t mean he never will, but you have to give him the chance to build it. You, like your mother, find it easy to care about those you have known only a short time. Your grandfather may be more like your father, less quick to open that door—but unlike your father, he is not so hardened as to refuse to show his affection for fear it prove his weakness._

Dean didn’t know what to say to that.

He was still trying to come up with a response when he heard footsteps behind him. “Dean,” Henry said quietly. “I, um... just... I’m sorry. About—it—I don’t... it just happened.”

Dean shook his head and didn’t turn around. “You don’t have to explain.”

“But I do. Look, if John grew up thinking I abandoned him, then I can understand your feeling the way you do. And I’m sorry for that, I really am. I don’t know what the future holds for Josie and me when this is over—”

“That could take years,” Dean interrupted, turning to face Henry at last. “All right? That could take decades. You know how long Dad kept saying ‘when this is over’? Until the day he died. It took twenty-two years for me and Sam to even find out we were chasin’ a demon, another year to gank the sucker, and it was months after that before we even found out his name. And it took another two years, almost three, to stop the Apocalypse. You expect me to believe you and your girlfriend are just gonna wait until we stop Abaddon to figure out what comes next?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Henry snapped. “But even if she were, and even if we don’t wait that long, I have no intention of running out on our family again. Whatever happens between her and me will not change the fact that you’re my grandsons.”

“Even though we’re mouth-breathing hunters and have alien snakes in our heads?”

Henry sighed heavily. “You and Sam and Josie are all I have left. I’ve just lost my wife and my son. I can’t bear to lose you, too.”

Dean took a deep breath, ran a hand over his mouth, and nodded.

Henry winced, barely but visibly, apparently recognizing something of Dad in that gesture. But he nodded back once and changed the subject. “Josie thinks Abaddon might have caused a small earthquake or something similar to break the wards at the Pentagon. We should go see what she and Sam have found.”

Dean nodded again and followed Henry back into the house.

“I really don’t know,” Josie was saying to Bobby as they walked in, while Sam did his thing on his laptop at Bobby’s desk. “She could sense the wards at Stargate Command, just as she felt them at the Men of Letters’ headquarters, but the only thing that caught her was the trap in the conference room. She tried to just shatter it, but it wouldn’t break because of the metal....”

“Naquadah,” Sam and Dean supplied at the same time, making Henry double-take.

“She hadn’t encountered naquadah before,” Josie continued. “But she’d kept me unconscious while she scouted the club, and the elders had never filled us in on exactly what wards were used on the building. So I don’t know whether it was the metal or the symbol that stopped her.”

“Could have been the combination of the two,” Henry noted. “Theoretically, at least, a devil’s trap carved on a bullet has the same effect as a binding link.”

Dishon nudged Dean and stepped forward. “I believe Gabriel may have strengthened the wards at the SGC after Lucifer claimed Sam, to better protect the Stargate. He may not have done the same at Homeworld Command.”

Sam nodded absently. “Well, she apparently locked the angels out of the Pentagon, so Gabriel’s probably dealing with that right now.” A moment’s typing later, he added, “Whichever wards she could or could not get past on her own, the USGS did pick up a minor tremor at the Pentagon around 3:00 this morning. So apparently we do need to set wards that can’t be broken physically, whether they’re non-physical or made out of something like naquadah.”

“That’ll keep ’em out of the Pentagon, sure,” said Bobby. “Don’t give us much to go on in terms of takin’ out Abaddon.”

Josie sighed. “I wish I knew more, truly, but she didn’t reveal much beyond her immediate mission. Zachariah had asked her to eliminate the Men of Letters and destroy any artifacts that might be at the club. That’s why she killed all the elders and set the place on fire, although she didn’t think Larry would be able to make it out. And that’s why she followed Henry here. When she saw Larry give Henry the key, even though she didn’t know what it was, she knew it was important enough to destroy.”

Henry frowned. “Destroy, not take?”

“Right. She might have changed her mind if she found out what it was, but the whole reason Zachariah came to her was to prevent John from having access to any of the knowledge the Men of Letters had.”

“But... _why?_ ”

Dean took over again. “Why do you think we’re hunters?”

Henry paled and sat down hard next to Josie.

“Zach was one of the main movers and shakers behind the whole Apocalypse plot. He had Michael on board after Lucifer rose, but we don’t know if he was working on Michael’s orders the whole time or not.”

“Not that it matters in the long run on our end,” Sam added. “We know he was working with Lilith at least part of the time, possibly all along. We suspect he delayed Cas from rescuing Dean from Hell until after Dean had already broken the first seal. He probably wasn’t working with Azazel openly, but he ordered Cas to set Dean up in a predestination paradox to draw Azazel’s attention to Mom, and he and Michael made sure Mom wouldn’t remember that Dean had warned her not to get out of bed the night she died.”

Dean couldn’t suppress a flinch at that.

 _It wasn’t your fault_ , Dishon reminded him.

Sam continued, “We know Zach ordered the cupids to force Mom and Dad to fall in love. But Mom was a hunter, and she lived in Lawrence. If Dad had stayed in Normal and joined the Men of Letters, they might not even have met.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, and if Dad had access to that bunker, even if he hadn’t been able to save Mom, he sure as hell wouldn’t have been chasin’ bad leads for twenty years, which means he wouldn’t have raised us the way he did. He did the best he could, don’t get me wrong, but if Yellow-Eyes was willing to kill Jess to get Sam back on the road....” He decided not to finish the thought.

“I _can’t_ go back,” Henry breathed, horrified.

Josie shifted but made a visible effort to restrain herself from hugging him.

And Dean felt something... thaw, for lack of a better word. “We’re sorry, Henry,” he said quietly but sincerely.

“You are safe here,” Sam added.

“Because we’re hidden?” Josie asked.

“And because Zach’s dead. Dean killed him.”

Henry drew in a ragged breath. “That may not do us much good if we can’t stop Abaddon. The official Apocalypse may be off, but that doesn’t mean she won’t start one of her own.”

Frowning, Josie stood and started pacing. “Bobby, you said the demons working with the Lucian Alliance were looking for sources of souls?”

Bobby nodded. “Right. Same with this bunch goin’ after Purgatory. They need more power to fight over who’s the new King of Hell.”

“But Abaddon doesn’t need that kind of power. She’s a Knight of Hell, the Destroyer, the Angel of the Abyss. Azazel was her son. She may have to deal with a rebellion, but unless she has serious rivals, it won’t take her long to solidify her place as queen.”

“So why would she go after _Destiny_?” Sam asked.

“In our last case, the one where I got possessed, Abaddon had taken over a convent and was directing her demons to steal souls directly from living humans. The bodies didn’t die immediately, although I don’t understand how. Some of them ended up killing themselves, but some started acting like sociopaths. And while they were off wreaking their own kind of havoc, she was keeping the souls in isolation. Somehow that was going to allow her to turn them into demons more quickly.”

“So you’re saying....”

“She’s not building a power source. She’s building an army.”

* * *

The flurry of meetings and phone calls that followed Josie’s realization mainly consisted of everyone agreeing with her theory and not having many suggestions of what to do that they weren’t already doing. Cas and Gabe went back to work on fixing the wards at the Pentagon. Landry and O’Neill had to go argue with the IOA over whether the change in motive warranted alerting the rest of the galaxy, given that the tactics were likely to be the same in the near term. Bobby and Josie started working the phones, getting word through the hunter grapevine that efforts to stop the assault on Purgatory needed to become an even higher priority. Sam started giving Henry a tutorial in how to read Ancient so they could divvy up Janus’ journal more easily.

And Dean... walked back to Lisa’s house. He’d been hit with one bombshell too many.

Ostensibly, of course, he was going to bring the Chevelle back to Bobby, since Inias had brought them straight back to Bobby’s house while Samandiriel and the rest of the garrison mopped up at the Pentagon. Dean even had the Chevelle’s keys in his pocket. But despite the cold, he didn’t call Lisa to come get him because he needed the walk, the solitude, the quiet, the chance to not deal. Even Dishon didn’t say much, just... let him walk.

Of all the things they didn’t need, a winner in Hell’s civil war came second only to someone other than Raphael wanting to put the Apocalypse back on track. In Abaddon, they got both. Sure, Josie had no idea whether Abaddon would be trying to open the Cage before or after she’d conquered the Milky Way and Pegasus, but her to-do list was looking pretty clear. Hell, even her name meant _destruction_.

Not that it was Henry’s fault, per se, though he was beating himself up about it while throwing himself into the hunt, in true Winchester fashion. Not like he knew Abaddon _could_ follow him once the portal shut down. Not like she would even have tried had she not been under orders from Zachariah.

 _Goa’uld_ didn’t have a curse strong enough for Zach’s treachery. Even dead, the damn angel kept ruining their lives.

Dean wasn’t sure he’d quite forgiven Henry, and he really didn’t know if he’d ever have less of a problem with Henry hooking up with Josie, but he was finding it easier now to see Henry’s side of things. Even if he couldn’t agree with Henry’s choice in jumping, it had saved Henry’s life... and now the poor guy was stuck here. Dean had had to face that possibility himself, back in ’78, when Cas had collapsed and the brothers had no way of knowing whether he’d ever recover enough to bring them back to the present. The Rip Van Winkle option had to be even worse.

Well, at least Henry was alive, even though that gave Dean yet another family member to worry about. However much training Henry had gotten from the Men of Letters made him that much less of a civilian. And at least he didn’t have many ties left on Earth, which meant evacuation to Atlantis wouldn’t be a problem. There was the bunker, too, if the powers that be didn’t want Henry going to Atlantis for some reason. Maybe they could even convince Bobby to move out there. Hell, the place already had a command center; it shouldn’t be too hard to transfer Bobby’s phone bank to that setup.

That still left Dean at a loss for what to do about Lisa and Ben. And Dishon still didn’t have any good ideas.

The sun was low on the horizon when he finally got back to Lisa’s, and since she was home, he decided to just hang out until Sam called that he was ready to be picked up. Then he drove the Chevelle while she followed in her car, and after bidding Bobby and Henry and Josie good night, both brothers rode back with Lisa.

“Gen. Landry called,” Sam reported as they drove off. “The IOA wants Henry to man the bunker and do as much research as he can there, and Josie’s supposed to go to the SGC to serve as the Letters’ liaison. Cas said he’d take Henry to the bunker on Friday.”

Dean nodded. “And us?”

“They’re sending us back to Atlantis on the _Daedalus_ Friday; Caldwell’s making a supply run. Since the demon in Dr. Dacosta recognized us, Gen. O’Neill thinks there’s an even greater chance than usual that Abaddon’s going to try to get to us.”

Dean sighed.

“I did tell him you told him so.”

Dean had to chuckle at that. “Thanks.”

Supper was pretty quiet that night, followed by Sam, Dean, and Ben playing _Mario Kart_ for a couple of hours until Lisa declared it was Ben’s bedtime. Then Sam went up to the guest room to work some more on his translation, leaving Dean still sitting on the couch with his cell phone in his hands, staring at it and trying to psych himself up to make a call.

Lisa came in a moment later and sat down beside him. “So you’ll probably be in Atlantis for Christmas?”

Dean nodded but didn’t look up. “Yeah, probably.”

“Ben will be disappointed.”

He took a deep breath. “He doesn’t have to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m gonna call the SGC, get the go-ahead for you to come with us.”

She sighed. “Dean, we’ve been over this.”

“And you know I’ve respected your decision.” He finally looked at her. “But the situation has changed.”

“What’s one more demon?”

“Abaddon’s not just any demon. The only one we’ve dealt with who was stronger and older was Lilith. Abaddon is powerful; she’s evil; she’s ruthless. She’s already got it in for our family. If she tries to restart the Apocalypse, one of the first things she’ll do is try to smoke us out.”

“You’re hidden.”

“But you aren’t. Even if we have Cas put the sigils on your ribs, it only takes one human to give away your location. And yeah, this house is warded, but I know you don’t stay here 24/7. She can grab Ben at school, grab you at the store or at the studio, and bam, she’s got two hostages to threaten us with. Now, you can come with us back to Atlantis, or you can go with Henry to the bunker. But you are _not_ staying here, because I am done letting you take chances with the life of _my son!_ ”

That declaration hung in the air between them as a dozen different emotions passed over her face. Finally she settled on anger. “Don’t you think I want Ben safe?”

“I think your definition of ‘safe’ needs to be reworked. I think you still don’t get that for us, there is no such thing as normal. Good schools, drama club, all of that, yeah, they’re good things for a kid to have—but you cannot let those take priority over going to the safest place for Ben. On Earth, you’re in a war zone, and no matter where you and he are, unless it’s the bunker, sooner or later something’s gonna try to use you to get to us. And yeah, I get that you don’t want to move to another galaxy, far away from everything you’ve ever known, but Atlantis is a hell of a lot better than anyplace on Earth where me and Sam grew up. So if you’re too afraid of the unknown, fine. You can do what you want. But Ben is coming with me.”

“You have no right to take my son away from me.”

“I can get a paternity test. I’ll prove I’ve got every damn right.”

They glared at each other for a long moment.

Then he sighed. “Lis, I _want_ you to come to Atlantis with me. Please. It’s the most amazing place I’ve ever been. Just about the only thing it’s missing is you.”

She wavered, although she tried to cover with a scoff. “You don’t think about us that much, do you?”

“Every. Damn. Day.”

Dishon stepped forward for a moment. “It’s true, Lisa. Even if the thought is only a fleeting hope that you are well, it does cross his mind.”

She bit her lip.

Dean took over again, set down the phone, and took her hands. “At least come with us on the _Daedalus_ this trip, visit the city, stay for Christmas. That week we have off, we can even take you around to some of the Coalition worlds, let you see for yourself what it’s like. And you can meet our friends. They’ll love you and Ben. I’m sure you’ll love it there, too. But if... if you don’t... then at least promise me you’ll send Ben to the bunker with Henry.”

“Dean....”

“Give us a chance,” he pleaded.

She bit her lip again. “You... think Henry could handle Ben?”

“What’s to handle? He’s a good kid.”

She smiled a little.

“’Sides, Dad was, what, eight when Henry left? He’s a dad; he gets it. It’ll be fine.”

She studied his face another long moment and then nodded. “Okay. We’ll give it a month, see where things stand after the holidays.”

He sighed in relief and pulled her into a tight hug. “Thank you.”

She returned the hug and rubbed his back a little. “I’ve missed you, too,” she whispered.

And there they sat for several minutes, just holding each other, as he felt one of the gaping, jagged holes in his heart slowly heal. It was all he could do not to cry.

“How did you find out about Ben?” she finally asked.

“Lya,” he answered. “The... alien with the crazy hair you saw at the SGC that one time. She was here for a meeting on Sunday, asked after him.”

“Oh.” Lisa sniffled. “I, um... I’m sorry. I just....”

“Lis. It’s okay. And I’m sorry for pulling rank. I just want you both safe.”

She sniffled again, and he felt a few tears soak into his shirt. Then she pulled back to look him in the eye again. “If... if we move to Atlantis, will we... ah....”

He rested his forehead against hers. “We’ll figure something out.”

She smiled a little. “Okay.”

He kissed her, and she kissed him.

“I’d better call the SGC,” he said then. “Don’t want to have to call Landry at home tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Okay. Will you be coming to bed after that?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Gotta pack, and get stuff ready for tomorrow, too. Been a hell of a day.”

“Yeah. It has.”

He kissed her again. “I love you.”

“I know.” She kissed back. “I love you, too.”

He gave her one last hug and let her go upstairs while he pulled himself together to make his phone call. That successfully concluded, he alternated packing what he could of the things Ben and Lisa were allowed to bring on the _Daedalus_ with finishing preparations for Thanksgiving.

By the time Sam finally came down to get coffee, it was four in the morning. He frowned as he walked into the kitchen. “Aren’t you going to rest at _all?_ ”

Dean shook his head. “I dunno. Not sure I can. Not that _you_ have room to talk.”

Sam huffed.

“How’s the translation coming?”

“Slower than I’d like. Daniel may have to decipher some of it; parts are encrypted as well as in Ancient. I’m just hoping those are the parts we need and not some kind of tell-all about his lovers back in Atlantis.”

Dean gave an exaggerated shudder. “And we thought Henry and Josie were bad.”

Sam snorted. “Speaking of girlfriends, I don’t think Ben could hear, but it sounded like things got a little heated between you two last night.”

“Well, if Ben couldn’t hear, how did you?”

“Hello? Tok’ra! So what happened?”

Dean set the pan he was holding down on the stove with a sigh. “Song of the Entwives,” he murmured. “Guess winter’s coming.”

“... What?”

Dean turned to Sam. “I talked her into it. They’re coming to Atlantis, at least through the holidays.”

“That’s awesome! But... did you just....”

“Dude, shut up.” Embarrassed at his geeky slip, Dean turned back to the stove.

Sam’s amusement was palpable, but he let the subject drop.

They sat and talked until Lisa came down around 6, at which point Sam went back to translating and left Dean and Lisa to talk over plans for the day and for the next month, including what to tell Ben. Since her final decision about where to stay was still pending, they agreed to hold off on the paternity reveal until she made up her mind. As it was, though, Ben was overjoyed to learn of the coming Atlantis trip at breakfast and would have called his school himself if Lisa hadn’t insisted that the withdrawal needed her okay.

The family piled into the Impala to drive over to Bobby’s for Thanksgiving dinner and arrived to find Henry taking the perfectly-cooked turkey out of the oven so that Josie could put in a pumpkin pie. Everyone kept shop talk to a minimum even after the angels arrived. Cas and Gabe updated everyone on the situation at the Pentagon (secure), and Bobby assured the brothers that he was planning to head to the bunker with Henry as soon as he worked out how to transfer the phone bank. Rufus even turned up just as everyone was sitting down to eat and helped keep the conversation light.

But after the meal, once everyone was happily stuffed and the angels had left, Rufus and Bobby got to work on the phone bank problem while Josie and Lisa worked on the dishes and Sam and Ben settled in to watch football. And Dean, who had one last loose end to tie up before he felt safe leaving Earth, saw his opportunity.

“Hey, Henry,” he said. “Talk to you a minute?”

Henry blinked. “Um. Sure.”

Dean nodded toward the staircase and led Henry up to the bedroom where he and Sam normally stayed. Once they were both inside, he closed the door, just to prevent interruptions.

Henry looked at the door nervously and back at Dean. “Is something wrong?”

Dean shook his head. “No, no, it’s just... unless something changes, we’re probably not gonna see each other again before Christmas.”

“Oh, right. True.”

“So I figured I might as well give you your gifts now.”

Henry blinked. “Gifts?”

“Has Bobby been gettin’ you up to speed on how to use modern computers?”

“Uh, yes, somewhat.”

“Okay, good.” Dean handed him a CD. “Because this is a copy of Dad’s journal that you need a computer to read. The SGC’s gonna issue you a laptop tomorrow; you can open these files on there. If you need help with it, you can ask Bobby.”

Henry turned the jewel case over in his hands a couple of times, then nodded and looked at Dean again. “Thank you.”

“Now, this next part’s gonna take a while, so we should sit down.”

Still confused, Henry sat down on the edge of what was usually Sam’s bed.

Dean took a deep breath and reached into his pocket for the other reason he’d called the SGC. “This is Tok’ra technology, highly classified here on Earth. I can’t let you keep the device... but it’s going to let me give you something you can keep.”

“All right,” Henry replied warily.

“This’ll sting a little,” Dean warned and attached a memory device to Henry’s temple and one to his own. Before Henry could ask any questions, Dean used the controller to connect the two and sat down beside his grandfather.

“What are you....”

“Just watch, okay?” Dean closed his eyes, switched on the device, and thought of Dad.

Henry gasped as the first memory surfaced. “Is-is that....”

“Shh,” Dean replied.

Controlling the recall was easier with Dishon’s help, though Dean was only dimly aware of the Tok’ra deliberately feeding happy memories through the device as much as possible. Henry kept his audible reactions to a minimum, but he started sniffling well before Dean was ready to stop sharing. And when at last Dean turned off the device and opened his eyes, Henry was wiping his face with his handkerchief.

“Sammy doesn’t really remember a lot of the good times,” Dean confessed. “But I... thought you’d... y’know... want a chance to see.”

Henry nodded. “You were right. That was a priceless gift. Thank you.”

Dean hugged him, and Dishon was so pleased, Dean was almost afraid he’d burst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from the Beach Boys song of the same name, and the Song of the Entwives (from _The Two Towers_ , aka "The Ent and the Entwife") portrays an argument between the Ents, who want the Entwives to move back to the forest, and the Entwives, who don't want to leave their gardens. They disagree through Spring and Summer but reunite in Winter and go together into the West. So "winter's coming" isn't actually a _Game of Thrones_ /ASOIAF reference in that context, though I suppose the GOT sense could also fit in terms of the coming fight against Abaddon.


	9. Chapter 8: Hello, Goodbye

Thanksgiving had gone much more smoothly than Henry had feared. Josie had fallen back into her standard mode of treating him as her married best male friend, and while that hurt a little, it helped more. He and Sam had already somewhat made their peace before Landry had called with their assignments, chatting about languages and discussing how to divide Janus’ journal, but after the call, they had just talked, gotten to know each other a bit better. They had parted on good terms that night, he thought. And then Dean... mercy, he didn’t even have the words for what Dean had done, giving him that glimpse of John as a man. He knew the perspective might have been skewed by coming through the eyes of a devoted son, but any image was better than none, and the Tok’ra device had been far better quality than home movies. 

Regaining his composure afterward had taken a good half hour, and he had come down to find Sam and Rufus on the phone with the SGC, Josie and Lisa watching the game with Ben, and Dean talking quietly with Bobby in the language of the Tok’ra. Dean had been the one to invite Henry to join them, and they’d talked of inconsequential things until supper. And when the boys had left with Ben and Lisa, everyone had known it wasn’t to avoid spending more time with Henry—or Josie, for that matter.

They were finally adjusting to viewing Henry as their grandfather. And as hard as it had been to accept that his offspring could be hunters, never mind the Tok’ra side of things, Henry was finally finding a place in his heart for Sam and Dean as his grandsons. Even Bobby and Rufus were helping with that... their edges were rough, certainly, but they were as wise and scholarly as many of the elder Letters he had known.

All these thoughts chased themselves around Henry’s mind as he woke early Friday morning, got ready for the day, and finished the last of his packing. Rufus, with the SGC’s blessing, was coming with Bobby and Henry to the bunker for a week or two to help better organize and coordinate the hunt for the demons pursuing Purgatory, and Henry came down from his shower to find him fixing breakfast.

“So you’re John’s daddy,” Rufus observed, looking up from the omelet he was making.

Henry nodded. “Yes, sir, hard as it is to believe.”

Rufus chuckled. “Ain’t that hard. I know Sam, and I knew John.”

“Yes, Sam does remind me of John, quite a lot.”

“Say, if you’re wantin’ to stand around and talk, you mind fixin’ the bacon? I can’t.”

“Not at all.” Henry went to the refrigerator. “Would that divide your attention?”

Rufus looked at him oddly. “I’m Jewish.”

“Oh! Sorry, I—”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. You didn’t know. Most people don’t.”

Still feeling a bit awkward, Henry retrieved the bacon and followed Rufus’ directions to find a skillet. Once the first batch of bacon was sizzling merrily, Henry said, “So tell me about John.”

“Best damn hunter I ever knew,” Rufus replied immediately. “’Side from his sons, that is. Smart as a whip, tenacious, could find patterns out of piles of evidence like you wouldn’t believe. Prickly son of a gun sometimes, too hard on his boys, too bent on revenge for his own good—but hell, who wouldn’t be after what he saw?” He shook his head. “Did a hell of a lot of good in his time, though, saved a lot of lives. Not that I’d expect less of a Jarhead. I know your time with him got cut short, but... you did good.”

Henry was glad to have the bacon to focus on; that kept him from breaking down. It still took a couple of ragged breaths for him to be able to say, “Thanks, Rufus.”

Rufus transferred the omelet to a plate, squeezed Henry’s shoulder, and went to start the coffee.

By the time breakfast was ready, Josie had come down in her SGC uniform, and the boys, in their black Atlantis uniforms, had arrived with Ben and Lisa. Dean was practically glowing with excitement, which plainly amused Sam. Then Bobby, who was on one of the smallest of his phones, returned from taking care of some last-minute business in another part of his salvage yard, and the whole family sat down for one last breakfast together. But once the meal was over and the dishes were washed and it was time to leave, there was still no sign of Castiel.

“Cas said he’d meet us on the _Daedalus_ ,” Sam stated before Henry could ask. “You and Rufus still have some paperwork to sign, and the SGC’s assigning you a computer that’s connected to the Homeworld Command network so you can send secure messages and such.”

“Oh, okay,” Henry replied. “So how do we get to the _Daedalus_?”

“First things first,” Dean answered, slinging a pack over his shoulder at the same time Sam did. “We all need to have our bags in hand so nothing gets left behind.”

With a general murmur of agreement, everyone complied. Henry and Josie had borrowed duffle bags from the boys the night before, but Bobby and Rufus had their own, and Ben and Lisa had backpacks.

That done, Dean took what looked like a small loop of wire out of his pocket and looped it over his ear; part of it rested inside his outer ear, and part that was covered in something fuzzy stuck out toward his mouth. Then he tapped the part that went in his ear. “ _Daedalus_ , this is Winchester. We’re ready.”

A chime, a flash... and the family was standing in a room that _did_ look like Henry’s picture of the future, complete with a window that looked out on what could only be Earth standing out against the blackness of space. He and Josie gasped.

“Winchesters,” said an oddly familiar voice behind them. “Right on schedule. Nice of you to be so prompt.”

Henry turned—and stared. The face, though older, was as familiar as the voice, but... it-it couldn’t be....

The balding man in the flight suit chuckled wryly. “Your grandsons had the same reaction, Mr. Winchester. Col. Steven Caldwell. Welcome to the _Daedalus_.”

Henry shook the proffered hand. “Thank you, Colonel, but... do you mind my asking....”

“Mom was Samuel Campbell’s daughter,” Dean explained, the skin around his eyes tightening in a clear _Don’t ask_.

But Sam frowned. “You knew the Campbells?”

Henry nodded. “Somewhat. We worked with them occasionally. Samuel and I... didn’t really get along.”

Josie chuckled. “Understatement.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Explains why he hated Dad, then.”

“Dean,” Lisa chided, amused.

Sam rolled his eyes and took care of the introductions. Then the boys and the Braedens went off with a lady whose name Henry didn’t catch to put their gear in their quarters while Col. Caldwell led him and Rufus to a conference room in another part of the ship. Once the paperwork was complete and Henry had put his new computer—which, unlike the silver one Sam kept at Bobby’s, was black and adorned with the SGC logo—into his bag, Col. Caldwell led them back to the bridge. Bobby was chatting with one of the officers, but Josie was still looking out the window at Earth.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” Henry asked as he walked up beside her.

She nodded slowly. “I’d never imagined that men could fly to the moon, even with... Sputnik and Mercury and all the rest. And now your grandsons can push a button and walk to another galaxy.”

“I don’t think it’s quite _that_ easy.”

“But you know what I mean.”

“Yeah. I do.”

They were silent a moment, just drinking in the sight.

Then he sighed and turned to her. “I guess... this is goodbye, for the moment.”

She turned and tried to smile but didn’t make eye contact. “For the moment. You’ll... keep in touch?”

“Of course I will.” And somehow he knew they both knew he wasn’t talking about sending reports to her for the SGC.

She met his eyes then and held his gaze for longer than... well, longer than she should have, had he still been married. But something in the air shifted before he could make up his mind to kiss her.

“It’s time, Henry,” Castiel said.

Henry and Josie sighed in unison and turned away from the window.

“Hey, hey, whoa!” Dean called as he and Sam jogged onto the bridge. “Cas, wait up! We didn’t get a chance to say goodbye yet.”

“Oh,” said Castiel and fell back a couple of steps. “Of course, forgive me.”

The boys said their brief goodbyes to Josie first, and the officer Bobby had been talking to “beamed” her down to the SGC while they were taking their leave of Rufus. Then Castiel disappeared with Rufus while the boys and their symbiotes bade Bobby farewell, each brother giving Bobby a tight hug and a few teasing words that Henry didn’t understand. More strongly than ever, Henry got the sense that the boys considered Bobby their second father... and honestly, he could see why.

When Castiel returned for Bobby, though, the boys finally turned to Henry. “Henry,” Dean began, taking Henry’s hand in a firm grip but then pulling him into a brief but warm hug. Then he thumped Henry’s back twice before letting go and continuing. “You take care of yourself.”

Henry nodded. “I will.”

“We’ll be in touch. Let Bobby know if you need anything. And we’ll see if we can’t talk Woolsey into lettin’ you come out for Christmas.”

Henry couldn’t help smiling at that. “Thanks.”

Sam gave him the same kind of handshake-hug. “Stay safe, Henry.”

“I’ll try. You, too.”

They smiled in unison, and then Castiel pulled him away.

Bobby and Rufus were looking around in exasperation when Henry and Castiel arrived outside the bunker. “I’m tellin’ you, Rufus, it was _right here_ ,” Bobby insisted.

“Well, it ain’t here now,” Rufus shot back.

“What was?” Henry asked, confused.

“The _door_ ,” the elder hunters chorused, pointing to the hillside where the door... wasn’t.

And then it was.

Bobby crossed his arms as Rufus stared. “Toldja.”

Castiel tilted his head. “Interesting. It must be some kind of cloak that responds to the ATA gene.”

“The _what?_ ” Rufus echoed.

“Oh, this is gonna take a while,” Bobby groaned. “We’d better get inside.”

Deciding not to argue, Henry retrieved the key and led the way down the steps. _Lights on_ , he thought as he opened the door, and sure enough, the lights did come on.

“Oh brave new world, that has such critters in it,” Rufus murmured as he followed Henry inside.

“You’re telling me,” Henry murmured back and started down the stairs.

Getting Bobby’s phone bank connected to the command center switchboard took less time than getting Rufus up to speed, even with Castiel’s help. Both might have gone faster were it not for the hunters’ tendency to bicker like Abbott and Costello, though Henry was never sure which was Bud and which was Lou. As it was, the briefing took until the end of lunch, at which point Castiel left after ensuring the pantry and refrigerator were well stocked. Then the hunters started feeding data about the Purgatory search and the resulting strange monster incidents into the command center computer while Henry set up his SGC computer in the library and went back to work on his translation of Janus’ journal. The computer had an Ancient-to-English dictionary on it, which helped him proceed faster.

Late that afternoon, however, he came across a section that gave him pause. He double-checked his translation as best he could and emailed a copy, with great trepidation, to Dr. Jackson. When Dr. Jackson agreed with his interpretation, he went to Bobby and Rufus, who were hard at work on the map table.

Bobby saw him walk up and straightened. “Got something, Henry?”

“Yes and no,” Henry replied. “Nothing on the order of whether a demon can capture an ascended being, but it’s... relevant to the Purgatory question. A complication.”

“Go on.”

“Janus records the story of an Ancient named Menva, one of the most accomplished Lantean scientists. He says he doesn’t know how old she was and had heard rumors that she was the scientist responsible for the creation of the Wraith. What he does know is that when the Ancients returned to Earth, Menva’s ascension was short-lived. Her thirst for knowledge led her to study life here to an extent she had never done in Atlantis, then to begin experiments of the sort that bred the Wraith.”

Both Bobby and Rufus were frowning by this point.

“He... goes into some fairly lurid detail,” Henry admitted, rubbing his neck in embarrassment. “But the upshot is, at some point, she earned names other than Menva or Minerva. Echidna and Tiamat were two he records, though she began to call herself Chavvah. More generally, she was known as the Mother of All—and Janus claims ‘all’ meant all monsters.”

Rufus swore.

“Finally she crossed one line too many. She created a race called Leviathans, unkillable monsters that could eat anything and that even she couldn’t control. The other Ancients were still trying to decide on someone to stop the experimentation when... ‘someone else’ intervened. Janus doesn’t specify, but I’m sure he meant Yahweh.”

“Where is she now?” Bobby asked warily, as if he had guessed the answer.

Henry sighed and quoted, “She was thrown with the worst of her creations into the dimension called Purgatorio, and thither all her works are doomed to follow.”

The silence hung heavy for a long moment.

Finally, Bobby took off his cap with a sigh and tossed it down on the table. “That’s one hell of a complication, son.”

Henry could only grimace in agreement.

* * *

Wraith did not measure time as humans did, but the white-haired queen who had probed the Tok’ra’s mind was aware that a good deal of time had passed since that meeting on the Wraith homeworld. In that time, the infighting among the various Wraith factions had been exacerbated further as commanders and subordinate queens quarreled among each other and with their Primaries over whether the information about the demon threat was even true, never mind what to do about it. She herself had had to sacrifice an entire hive to quash a rebellion within her alliance. Yet somehow she could not make herself forget what she had seen in the Tok’ra’s mind—indeed, it played itself over and over in her memory.

_Oh. Hello, Dean._

And sometimes, as now, it played before her waking eyes, blinding her to her responsibilities to her hive. She had no idea why it disturbed her so, since there were points in Lucifer’s argument about humans that she could appreciate and accept, but there was something in that voice, the voice stolen from the other Tok’ra with his form... that was _wrong._

_Why would I want to destroy this... stunning thing, Father’s last perfect handiwork?_

So she was unaware that her hive had stopped to cull one of its feeding grounds near the edge of the galaxy. Not that she would have cared if she had known.

_Did you ever hear the story of how I fell from grace?_

“My queen?”

With an effort, she pulled herself out of her thoughts. “What is it?”

Her commander bowed deferentially. “The first wave has returned from the culling.”

She drew a deep breath. “Very well. Bring me a selection here at once, for I hunger.”

He bowed again and withdrew, leaving her to her thoughts once more.

_You’re not gonna tell me a bedtime story, are you? My stomach’s almost out of bile._

It was poor consolation to know that she’d been right about Sam and Dean. She had intended to probe Dean’s mind further while he showed her Sam’s possession, but that had been both impossible and unnecessary.

_Now, tell me, does the punishment fit the crime? Especially when it turns out I was right._

And yet the screams, the fires, the torments of Hell that Sam recalled always intruded on this memory, echoing in Lucifer’s words, bespeaking hatred and cruelty worse than had ever entered the darkest dreams of Wraith. She shivered.

This time, however, she was not so far gone as to fail to note the doors of her quarters opening as her commander returned with a well-guarded group of prisoners, two males and two females. These humans looked young and strong, full of life and fear, and the queen hissed in anticipation.

Her commander stepped forward. “These have all passed the plague screening, my queen. The others are still being tested.”

“You have chosen well,” she replied.

He bowed and stepped back.

She stood and walked along the line of prisoners, examining each more closely. Both females and one of the males were shaking, but while the other male would not meet her eyes, something was odd about him, as if his fear were not wholly genuine. She regarded him a moment longer through narrowed eyes, then ripped open his tunic and began to feed.

Yet something about the life she drained away was wrong, as was the prisoner’s reaction—he made pained noises, but they were false, and his mind was hidden from her. She paused, grabbed his chin, and forced him to meet her eyes.

He huffed... smiled slowly... and began to chuckle, a deep, strange chuckle, as his brown eyes turned black from corner to corner.

 _I know what you are_ , she heard Dean Winchester say to Lucifer. _You’re the same thing, only bigger._

She hissed and fell back a step. “ _Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus spiritus_ —”

The demon laughed. “Won’t work on me, sweetie,” he said, displaying a mark on his left arm, what the Tok’ra’s queen had called a binding link.

Without faltering in her speech, the queen looked at her commander, who promptly cut off the hand above the mark. Writhing, the demon lashed out with his mind, throwing the queen back against her throne and pinning her by the neck, cutting off her voice. Furious, she reached out through the mindlink and fed the exorcism through the mouth of every Wraith in the hive that could speak.

“How are you doing that?!” the demon demanded. “Stop it! STOP IT!”

But he couldn’t attack all the Wraith at once. And when the exorcism finished, with a cry as terrible as those in Sam Winchester’s memories, black smoke billowed out of the male’s mouth, and the pressure at her throat vanished as the human collapsed, weeping.

“My queen?!” her commander gasped.

But the queen ignored him for the moment, choosing instead to feed life quickly into the human male so that he would not die from the loss of his hand.

“Please,” the male sobbed as she finished and stood over him. “I’m just a kid from Cincinnati. I don’t know nothin’. Please let me go home.”

She blinked. “Cincinnati? Where is that?”

“Cincinnati, Ohio?”

She tilted her head in confusion.

“United States? N-North America? Earth?”

“Ha!” she hissed, and he flinched. “What are the coordinates of Earth?”

“I-I... I dunno. Honest. I don’t know nothin’. I didn’t do nothin’. It... it wasn’t me who killed those guys, I swear!!”

“But I cannot take you home if you cannot tell me the way.”

He started crying even harder.

She stooped to caress his cheek. “You saw what the creature did while it possessed you.”

He nodded.

“You know how it brought you to the planet where we captured you.”

He nodded again.

“You know what they are planning.”

“Please—”

“Show me everything,” she ordered, connecting her mind to his, “and I will ease your passing. Lie, and your life will be long... and painful.”

The images that immediately poured into her mind confirmed everything the Tok’ra’s queen had said, and then some. She probed only a little, seeking the name of the demons’ queen—Abaddon—and the address of the world from which the demons had come to her galaxy, which the human had failed to see.

When the flood of information ceased, she caressed his cheek once more. “You have done well, and you may have helped your own people as well as mine. Go now to whatever awaits humans beyond the stars.” And she drained him as quickly as possible.

As she straightened, refreshed but still unsettled, one of her sub-commanders entered. “Forgive the intrusion, my queen,” he said with a bow, “but the words you commanded us to speak caused smoke to come from several other prisoners from the first wave.”

She nodded. “Bring those humans to me and return these others to their cells. Repeat the exorcism in the hearing of the remaining waves and bring me any prisoners who react to it.”

“Yes, my queen,” he replied with a bow and left, leading the other prisoners away. Two of the guards carried out the Earthling’s remains as well.

She turned to her commander. “Prepare the emergency message. Broadcast to all ships within range, on all channels—Wraith, Travelers, even Lantean, it does not matter. Then send a team to investigate the planet’s surface—they are to exorcise any humans they may meet and capture those who react. Keep the Gate dialed out as much as possible, and have a scientist examine the dialing device to try to determine where in Earth’s galaxy these intruders may have come from.”

He bowed. “Yes, my queen. But if I may ask?”

“The demons have arrived.”

He bowed again and left.

Not until the door was shut did she allow herself to shudder and groan. The Tok’ra’s queen had been right not to keep this threat to herself; demons, it seemed, were indeed worse than Replicators. And while she still did not understand Dean’s jibe about “six impossible things before breakfast,” she would never admit to her hive that one impossible thing was true.

For the first time in her many millennia, she was afraid.

* * *

Sending the Winchesters and Braedens back to Atlantis via the _Daedalus_ may have been O’Neill’s decision, but Landry had had a hunch that three weeks was going to be too long for the brothers to be out of contact. So he sent the SGC’s ZPM with Caldwell to power the ship’s hyperdrive, meaning that the trip took only four days.

Dean was just as glad. Once they were in hyperspace, the ship didn’t seem to be moving at all unless one looked out a window, so motion sickness wasn’t an issue, and neither were his usual flying nerves (though Dishon seemed to help with both problems). Still, by the end of Day 3, he was starting to feel claustrophobic, and Ben was getting antsy. The two of them spent a few hours that evening hanging out on the observation deck, watching the purple streaks of hyperspace flow by and talking about life, and that helped a little.

The fact that Kavanagh was on board didn’t, but Lisa and Sam got to be pretty good at running interference for Dean. Unfortunately, that meant that Kavanagh started getting ideas about his standing with Lisa—at least until Marks, who’d transferred back from the _Hammond_ , started telling Apocalypse stories over supper one night. That, plus a quiet growl from Sam that Dean couldn’t quite overhear, pretty well convinced Kavanagh that he was dead if he so much as looked at Lisa again.

It was a relief, therefore, when Caldwell finally came to the family on Day 4 to tell them to get ready to beam. At the same time, Dean suddenly felt nervous. What if Lisa didn’t like Atlantis? What if she hated it so much that she demanded to go home after only a few days? Would she let Ben stay? Would she keep her promise to send him to Henry? Would she ever forgive Dean for dragging her all the way out here? Would he ever see either of them again?

 _Stop that_ , Dishon grumbled as Dean finished packing and zipped his backpack shut. _There’s no law that says you must lose everyone you love._

 _Dude, how long have you known me?_ Dean shot back.

_Long enough to understand your fear. But I have lived too long to share it._

Dean sighed, shouldered his backpack, and went to join the others on the bridge.

As he walked up to Lisa, though, she slipped her right hand into his left, twining their fingers together. She gave him a confident smile, but when she squeezed his hand, he could feel that she was trembling. He ran his thumb over hers and smiled back.

“There’s only one other kid in Atlantis?” Ben asked Sam.

Sam nodded. “Yeah, his name’s Torren. Some of the guys call him TJ. He’s only three.”

“Gotta warn you, though,” Dean added. “TJ’s a hugger.”

Lisa chuckled, and they all turned to watch as the _Daedalus_ came out of hyperspace above New Lantea.

“Col. Caldwell?” Marks called a few seconds later. “Just received a message from Atlantis, requesting that you beam down with the Winchesters.”

Caldwell’s eyebrows shot up, but he stood. “All right. Send us down, and then set down on the East Pier to unload.”

Marks nodded once. “Yes, sir.”

One flash later, the five of them were in the Gateroom facing Woolsey, Sheppard, Teyla, and Torren. Dean wasn’t sure what felt best, seeing those familiar smiling faces, feeling Lantea’s warm sense of welcome, or hearing Ben and Lisa’s awed gasp.

“DEEEEEEAN!” Torren squealed and launched himself at Dean’s legs.

Dean laughed and ruffled his hair. “Heya, Teej. Missed you, too.”

Woolsey’s smile brightened. “Sam, Dean, welcome back.”

“Thank you, sir,” they chorused automatically.

Teyla stepped up to first Sam, then Dean for the Athosian head-touch. “You must be Lisa,” she said next as she moved on to Lisa and Torren went to hug Sam.

Lisa blinked and nodded. “Yes, I’m... Lisa Braeden.”

“Teyla Emmagen. Welcome to Atlantis.” And she bowed her head again.

After a slight hesitation, Lisa touched foreheads with Teyla.

Teyla smiled warmly as she stepped back. “It is good to meet you at last. Dean has told us so much about you.”

Did Lisa... actually blush at that? Well, it didn’t quite matter, since Torren scampered over to hug her at that moment, although he was considerably gentler in doing so than he had been with Sam and Dean.

“My son Torren,” Teyla said.

Lisa smiled and rubbed Torren’s back. Then she gestured toward Ben, who was still on the far side of Sam. “My son Ben.”

Torren looked, gasped, and looked up at Dean, who nodded once.

Ben was looking at the adults, however, and nodded once to them. “Hi. Nice to mee-OOF!” he grunted as Torren nearly knocked him over.

“Told you,” Dean said over Lisa’s laughter.

Sam was grinning as he shook his head. “Lisa, this is the leader of the expedition, Mr. Richard Woolsey, and the military commander, Lt. Col. John Sheppard.”

Lisa finally let go of Dean to shake hands with Woolsey and Sheppard in turn.

Then Woolsey took a deep breath. “Normally, I would be making a welcome speech about now. But I’m afraid something has come up that means I need to forgo such formalities and ask Sam and Dean, and Col. Caldwell, to join Col. Sheppard and myself in the conference room immediately.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. “All right,” Dean said with a shrug. “Teyla, would you....”

Teyla nodded. “Of course. Lisa, if you and Ben would come with me, I’ll show you to your quarters and give you a tour of the city.”

Lisa looked up at Dean nervously, and he brushed a kiss on her cheek. “We’ll catch up with you as soon as we can.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay.” Then she kissed him and turned. “C’mon, Ben.”

Torren finally let go of Ben just long enough to grab his hand and start babbling about how “we are gonna be bestest friends, like Mommy an’ SamanDean an’ Unka John an’ Unka Rodney an’ Unka Ronon an’...” as Ben bemusedly followed Lisa and Teyla out of the Gateroom.

Sheppard shook his head. “Kid never met a stranger.”

All the other men chuckled at that.

Then Woolsey sobered as he turned back to the Winchesters. “It seems Gen. Landry’s concern was well founded. You’ve arrived not a moment too soon.”

Both brothers frowned. “What’s happened?”

“Come with us.”

“Your grandfather’s made a lot of progress on his half of Janus’ journal,” Sheppard reported as the five of them made their way up the stairs to the conference room. “Turns out, most of the monsters you guys have been hunting all your lives are Ancient experiments gone wrong. The scientist behind ’em all got crosswise with God, and he locked her up in Purgatory.”

The Winchesters and their symbiotes cursed in unison Goa’uld.

Woolsey nodded. “Mr. Singer and Mr. Turner fear Menva may be directing the increase in monster attacks as a response to the demons that are trying to find their way into her domain. But that’s not our only problem. About an hour ago we began receiving messages from the Alpha site. The demons have reached Pegasus.”

Another unison curse burst from the Winchesters. “Where?”

“M2Y-559,” Sheppard replied. “Populated world near the edge of the galaxy on the Milky Way side, just like we figured. Looks like they showed up less than a day before one of the hives you and Teyla briefed arrived to cull.”

The doors of the conference room opened to reveal Todd working on a Wraith tablet and muttering to himself. He looked up just long enough to make eye contact with the new arrivals and nod before going back to work, and the doors closed again.

Dean frowned and tilted his head as he looked at the tablet. “You get that from the Alpha site?”

“Yes,” Todd replied, not looking up. “The Primary to whom you showed Sam’s possession sent her report on it.”

Caldwell frowned. “How the hell did she get it to the Alpha site?”

“She doesn’t know the address, if that’s what you’re asking,” Sheppard assured him. “The locals helped the Wraith mop up the Lucian Alliance strike force, and the Wraith exorcised all the demons they could get their hands on. As soon as the queen had enough information, she sent a delegation to a pre-arranged uninhabited planet with instructions on how to contact Todd’s hive. Now, Todd’s hive had a data crystal with a macro developed by McKay and Zelenka that would allow them to contact the Alpha site securely without giving away the Gate address. After a little interstellar phone tag, we gave the Alpha site permission to have the delegation sent here, with the tablet.”

“You brought Wraith—”

“No,” Todd interrupted. “Only the tablet is Wraith. The Primary would never risk sending her warriors into a trap. These were humans—from Earth.”

Sam tipped his head back a little. “Former demon hosts. On Vihanta, most of the demons had possessed Lucian Alliance members, but if Abaddon’s calling the shots now....”

“She’d be sending demons who were closest to home,” Dean agreed. “And who cares if you strand a few hosts a few million light years from Earth when you’ve got seven billion more handy and plan to conquer the whole universe anyway?”

“Huh,” said Caldwell. “So where are they?”

“Isolation,” Woolsey reported. “As soon as Dr. Keller and her team finish examining them, she’ll select a spokesperson from the group to come brief us.”

Caldwell nodded, apparently satisfied.

Sam got Dean some coffee, and humans and Tok’ra sat down to wait. Only a few minutes later, the doors opened to admit Keller and a young woman who looked to be in her twenties. The stranger looked around the room timidly, then suddenly gasped in terror and ducked behind Keller. But she wasn’t looking at Todd... she was looking at Caldwell.

Bewildered, Caldwell frowned. “Okay, that’s a new one.”

“No,” the girl whispered. “Please, no, he’ll—he’ll kill me—”

“Hey,” Sam said as he and Dean jumped up in tandem and moved to block the girl’s view of Caldwell. “It’s okay. He’s not who you think he is.”

Keller looked at them and the girl in confusion. “What’s going on?”

Dean ignored her. “Can you look at me?” he asked the girl gently.

Shaking, the girl looked up at him.

“You recognize me?”

She nodded. “You’re Dean Winchester. The demon was afraid of you.”

“Me and my brother, we’re not gonna let anyone hurt you.”

“B-b-but....”

“He’s not who you think he is,” Sam repeated. “That’s Col. Caldwell. He’s a good guy.”

“C-Col. Caldwell?” the girl echoed as Keller eased around to stand beside her. “You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

Dean glanced at the girl’s clothes, which were non-descript, probably fairly standard Lucian Alliance issue. “How long were you possessed?”

She shook her head. “Maybe a week, I think. But I was there when... when Abaddon brought him back. She said she’d bring his daughter back if he would....” She gulped.

“Help her find Purgatory?”

The girl nodded. “She took him to a place... it kind of looked like a prison, but... she s-said she n-n-needed to know if he c-c-c-could get results....” She shuddered hard.

“It’s okay,” Sam assured her. “You don’t have to give us the details. But if it helps any, those probably weren’t humans.”

“Did he get anything?” Dean asked.

The girl shook her head. “No, but Abaddon... said she liked his style. He said he probably needed an Alpha, one of the firstborn. Abaddon said Eve was stirring up trouble, so the Alphas should be easier to find. He said he’d contact his family and see what they could do.”

“Excuse me,” Woolsey broke in. “Who are you talking about?”

The brothers sighed, turned, and chorused, “Samuel Campbell.”


	10. Chapter 9: Total Control

Gabriel and Castiel had just left Bobby’s house after Thanksgiving dinner when Carter called them from the far side of the Milky Way, where the _Hammond_ had uncovered evidence that Abaddon, via the Lucian Alliance, was looking for information about the Ori Supergate, including its location and means of dialing. So far, the Alliance hadn’t uncovered many leads. Few people within the SGC had access to that information, aside from SG-1 and the crew of the _Odyssey_ ; the _Odyssey_ was safely hidden in an undisclosed location in intergalactic space, where the Alliance couldn’t follow, and all the current and former members of SG-1 were safely warded against possession. Outside the SGC, only Priors had that knowledge, and most of them had been killed by irate followers or committed suicide in the wake of exposure to the Ark of Truth, which had stripped their minds of the lies inculcated by the now-extinct Ori, ascended beings that had drawn power from worship via the false religion of Origin. Only one Prior survived in the Milky Way, on Kelowna, and according to Carter’s information, the Alliance was getting too close to finding him. Yet she feared, and the angels agreed, that the Prior would balk if a request for silence came from humans known to be hostile to Origin.

So Castiel called Abdiel’s squad to stand by as backup, and off he and Gabriel went to warn the Prior. As expected, he was stubborn and hesitant to trust anyone, especially strangers claiming to be servants of a god he’d never known. He held out so long that Gabriel was mere moments away from going Trickster on him...

... until a detachment of demons came through the Gate and, despite getting caught in the trap Jonas Quinn had personally painted around the Gate, fought Abdiel’s squad nearly to a standstill.

“Nuts to this,” Gabriel declared and bounced the Prior into a universe where neither the Ori nor angels were real. Then he turned to Castiel. “I’ll take care of the Supergate. You take care of the demons.”

Castiel nodded once and went to aid Abdiel, and Gabriel took off for the Supergate. A quick look around showed that it was pretty well in a void, with no life on any planets within a fifty-light-year radius. That simplified his course of action...

... which was a good thing, because just then he started hearing chatter from the Earth-bound garrisons that Samuel Campbell had just been brought back to life.

With a Sanskrit expression of annoyance, Gabriel blew up the Supergate and sped back to Kelowna to finish off the demons that not even Castiel was strong enough to take out—but should have been. That done, he sent Castiel to report to Carter and headed back to Heaven, flying directly to the manorial memories of an aristocrat where Raphael liked to hang out these days. Sure enough, Raphael was there, sitting in an armchair beside a fireplace and staring into a roaring fire.

“All right,” Gabriel growled. “Who is it?”

Raphael looked up at him. “Who is what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Rapha. Abaddon has been back for a _week_ —”

“Earth time, which is nearly two months in Hell—”

“—and not only can your garrisons not find her—”

“—because she keeps switching hosts—”

“—among people with knowledge of the SGC—”

“That is hardly my concern!”

“—so far she has solidified her place as Queen of Hell, redoubled the search for souls on all fronts—”

“—which both the hunters and the SGC are well equipped to defend against—”

“—assaulted the Pentagon to attempt to reach _Destiny_ —”

“—which the Winchesters prevented—”

“—begun dispatching Alliance units with higher numbers of demons than before—”

“Again, not my concern—”

“—demons who _know too much_ about how to fight against angels—”

“—which does not automatically imply—”

“—and now she has resurrected SAMUEL CAMPBELL, a hunter who has been dead over THIRTY YEARS and was BURNED within twenty-four hours of his demise, when she has NO logical reason for doing so AND when demons DO NOT HAVE THE POWER to raise the dead, ESPECIALLY in the absence of a deal!” Gabriel paused both for effect and to rein in his temper enough to stop shouting. “And I repeat, she has done all this in. a. _week_.”

Raphael seethed for a moment before objecting, “Sam Winchester—”

“You know as well as I do what happened with Sam. Zach ordered Uriel to work with the crossroads demon and raise Sam only at her command after Dean had sold his soul. That’s also why Lilith ordered the other crossroads demons not to deal with Sam—only an angel could retrieve Dean from Hell, and Zach had to time the rescue mission precisely so Castiel wouldn’t get to Dean until after the first seal had broken.”

Raphael looked away and didn’t try to deny it.

“I thought we were agreed, Rapha.”

“That Father doesn’t want us to engineer the Apocalypse, yes. But that was before Abaddon’s return.”

“So what, you think it’s okay for Abaddon to run roughshod over the galaxy?”

“I didn’t say that. And I didn’t order anyone to help her.”

“But you know who it is.”

Raphael sighed, still not looking at Gabriel.

“Why are you so invested in this, in ending the world?”

“I want it over. The killing, the strife, the things humans have done to each other, to their planet. The things the various races of the universe have done to each other. It will never end so long as Lucifer lives, Gabriel. He _has_ to die.”

Gabriel swallowed hard. “I know that. I hate it, but I know it’s true. But when it’s Dad’s time, we won’t _need_ anyone on our side to work with the Enemy to pull it off. And what is so wrong about trying to protect humans, the way Dad wanted us to?”

Raphael didn’t answer.

Gabriel was still trying to figure out what to say next when Azrael called, _Gabriel! The Lucian Alliance has broken through!_

 _Whoa, wait, what?!_ Gabriel returned. _Where are you?_

Raphael frowned in alarm as Azrael rattled off the coordinates of a planet at the edge of the Milky Way, one that had a working Stargate and that the SGC knew of but had never explored. _They’ve been fighting us with spellwork_ , Azrael continued, _and I thought the line had held, but the third part of a company just got past us and succeeded in dialing out to an inhabited world in Pegasus._

Gabriel bit back a curse. _How many companies are left?_

There was a pause before Azrael answered, _I can’t tell. There’s at least one Goa’uld mothership in the system, but they’re warded against our senses. But I can tell that very few of the Alliance members are not possessed—and a number of the demons’ hosts are actually from Earth._

“She’s emptying Hell,” Gabriel murmured.

“But Pegasus is prepared,” Raphael said, more to himself than to Gabriel. “Surely the harm cannot be so great.”

Gabriel gritted his teeth and didn’t try to argue. He knew he needed to keep his focus on what was happening with the potential foothold situation. Azrael’s garrison did succeed in reestablishing the defensive line around the Gate and were smiting as many demons as they could, but it was a much tougher fight than it should have been.

 _DARTS!_ Azrael suddenly yelped. _The Wraith have found our Gate address!_

Raphael’s eyes widened, and he gripped the arm of his chair. “As friend or foe?” he asked aloud.

 _Both, I fear_ , Azrael replied. _Friends for the moment, for they’re driving back the demons, but it seems the hive is sending every ship in its hold. At this rate, by the time the Gate shuts down, we’ll be overrun._

Gabriel bit back another curse and listened to the garrison’s accounting over the next thirty-odd Earth minutes. The stream of Wraith ships didn’t lessen, nor did the onslaught of demoniac Alliance troops.

 _We can’t hold out much longer!_ Azrael finally cried.

Gabriel sighed. _All right, listen. Are there any civilians at all on your end of the Gate—normal humans, I mean?_

_No, but the system’s swarming with both Wraith and Alliance._

_All right. Time to kill ’em all and let Dad sort ’em out._

Raphael leapt to his feet in shock.

 _What do you mean?_ Azrael asked.

_I mean the Carter maneuver. Once the Gate shuts down, grab it and fall back to high orbit._

A moment passed before Azrael reported, _It’s not much better out here. I see five Alliance ships, at least, and easily two hundred Darts._

 _Dial out, quickly._ Gabriel gave Azrael the address of a Gate next to a black hole.

 _Done_ , Azrael reported.

Gabriel closed his eyes and ordered, _Now drop it into the sun._

Azrael’s shock was palpable. _Drop—the Gate?!_

_You heard me. Drop it into the star and vamoose. It’s the only way to shut this thing down._

There was a stunned pause, and then Azrael sadly reported, _The Gate is entering the corona. We are retreating._

A moment later, Gabriel sensed the shockwave of that system’s sun exploding, taking out all its planets and the Wraith and Alliance ships with them. He bowed his head in sorrow.

“Gabriel,” Raphael breathed.

“They were overrun,” Gabriel replied, eyes still closed and head still bowed. “I had no choice.”

After a moment’s silence, Raphael said, “You’re right, brother. I still want the Apocalypse to happen—but not like this. I hadn’t realized how great the cost could be.”

“No.” Gabriel opened his eyes to glare at Raphael. “No, you realized how bad it _could_ be. You’ve just been lying to yourself, trying to convince yourself that it _wouldn’t_ be this bad because Atlantis and the SGC have been doing a bang-up job of setting up defenses. Hells, they’ve practically been doing our job for us ever since Vihanta, thanks to Sam and Dean and the Tok’ra.”

Raphael opened his mouth to reply, but it turned into a gasp as his eyes snapped to something beyond the illusory room where they were standing. “No....”

Gabriel frowned. “What?”

Raphael grabbed Gabriel’s hand to share what he was seeing—through the eyes of his vessel, Donnie Finnerman. Donnie’s sister was visiting him in the nursing home, but black smoke was circling the room, and she was trying to dodge it and shield Donnie from it at the same time. But it was no use. The smoke pounced and forced its way down her throat, and when it had vanished into her, her eyes turned demon black as her mouth curled upward in a cruel smirk.

“NO!” Raphael cried.

Before either archangel could react further, however, an angel—Ion, one of Naomi’s intelligence minions—appeared behind the demon. “No, now wait a minute, Abaddon,” Ion said. “Raphael’s vessels don’t have any information you need.”

Abaddon laughed and turned to him. “Who said I wanted them for information?” With a quick jerk of the head, she snapped her host’s neck. “I’ve been a busy girl. I think I’m entitled to have some fun.”

“I was willing to help you gather an army and find a way to release Michael and Lucifer. But I won’t let you torture innocent humans, especially when they’re angel vessels.” And he manifested his sword.

“It’s too late, little boy.” She drew an angel sword of her own, disarmed him, and ran him through. “And you’ve already served your purpose.” She twisted the sword, jerked it this way and that to do maximum damage, and finally pulled it out, causing his grace to explode. Then, with a look of contempt at Donnie, she left.

Stunned, Raphael finally let go of Gabriel’s hand.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Still think this is Dad’s will?”

Raphael swallowed hard and looked Gabriel in the eye. “No. I was wrong.”

Gabriel put a hand on Raphael’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, bro.”

Raphael covered Gabriel’s hand with his own, squeezed a little, and mustered a small smile. “We have work to do.”

* * *

Meetings, meetings, and more meetings. That was one of the things Dean _hated_ about being part of the Stargate program—whenever there was a crisis, there was another meeting every time he turned around. At least this time there was actual news to discuss, as final updates from the hive filtered in through the Alpha site and Keller got more info out of the rescued Earthlings. Woolsey had ordered Senior Gate Tech Chuck Campbell, who was the Winchesters’ third cousin, to contact his sister Gwen to try to find out what Samuel was up to and see if there might be some way to undermine his loyalty to Abaddon. Sheppard and Sam were currently making plans to return the former demon hosts to Earth, and Todd was parsing the Wraith queen’s reports to find out what strategy she might be withholding, just in case Caldwell needed to take the _Daedalus_ out to stop an attempted reverse invasion.

Finally, when it looked like there might be a lull in the storm, Woolsey turned to Dean. “I think we can spare you for the moment,” he said with an apologetic smile. “Why don’t you go see to your guests?”

Dean nodded. “Thanks.” And he jogged out of the conference room to Stargate Ops.

Banks saw him coming and pointed over her shoulder, toward the balcony behind Stargate Ops. “She’s outside.”

“Thanks,” Dean replied and walked out the sliding doors to find Lisa on the balcony, looking out toward the mainland and letting the breeze blow her hair back from her face. “Hey.”

She turned to him and smiled. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“Not exactly, but we’re handling it. Where’s Ben?”

She nodded toward the mainland. “Dr. Beckett’s taking Ben and Torren flying. He offered to take me with them, but I decided I’d rather wait for you.”

He slid his arm around her waist. “I know just the spot. We could take a picnic lunch, maybe... ‘run out of gas’ for a few hours.”

She giggled, and when he pulled her closer, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “Beautiful weather today. Is it always like this?”

“Pretty much. Rains once in a while, but the temperature’s pretty much the same all year. Have to take you out on the East Pier some night, too. Even with the city glow, the stars are incredible. And this planet’s got five moons, though you can’t usually see more’n two. It’s awesome.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “Teyla showed us around some—and our quarters are right next to yours, she said.”

“That’s convenient.”

“Showed us the gym, said there might be some interest in yoga classes. She also offered to show me how to use her—bantos?”

“Bantos, yeah. Good idea, good self-defense.”

“Haven’t really had much chance to meet many other people yet, but Dr. Beckett seems like a nice guy.”

“He is. Bet he wouldn’t mind having Ben shadow him for a while, if Ben wants to, see what it takes to be a doctor out here.”

After a pause, she put her arm around his waist. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. She’s a beautiful city.”

He looked down at her. “That mean you’ll stay?”

“I haven’t... quite... decided yet.” She met his eyes at last. “But I think I’ll learn to like it here.”

He kissed her. She kissed him.

“Dean Winchester,” said Rachel from behind him.

Dishon grabbed control before Dean could jump and accidentally hurt Lisa. “The Tau’ri consider such intrusions highly improper, Rachel,” Dishon snapped. “You could have given some kind of warning, like a cough.”

Lisa dissolved into giggles.

“Castiel sent me,” Rachel replied archly. “We have urgent information about the Lucian Alliance.”

Grumbling, Dishon gave control back to Dean, who sighed in disappointment and gave Lisa another quick kiss before letting her go.

“See you at supper?” Lisa asked.

He nodded. “Hope so.”

“Okay.” She kissed him back and turned back to look out at the mainland again.

With a deep breath, he motioned for Rachel to follow him inside to the conference room, radioing Sheppard, Woolsey, and Sam to meet them there.

“My brothers are already informing Homeworld Command and Bobby Singer of this news,” Rachel stated as everyone sat down.

Sheppard nodded. “Good. That’ll save some time.”

Not that Rachel was one to waste time. Dean found himself having to stifle his reactions to her bad news just to be able to keep up. Just about the only good news was the number of Wraith and Alliance troops that had been wiped out when Azrael blew up the sun to take out the dueling beachheads, and even then, Dishon had to stop Dean from thinking about how many of those Alliance troops had been kidnapped from Earth.

As the briefing wound down, Woolsey leaned forward. “You said the demons are using spells to counteract the power of the angels. Is that an indication that the Men of Letters have been compromised?”

“Not to our knowledge,” Rachel replied. “Such dealings as we have had with the Men of Letters have always been cordial, and in any case, spells of that potency would not have been revealed to Josie Sands prior to her final initiation. Raphael is certain Abaddon received that information from Ion.”

“What about this hive?” Caldwell asked. “Any chance it’s still over M2Y-559?”

Rachel nodded. “Every chance. The queen is still attempting to renew contact with the lost Darts.”

Todd made an affirmative noise. “She may also be attempting to determine the coordinates of that planet so that the hive can follow in case the Stargate was destroyed.”

Caldwell looked at Woolsey. “Any objection to my taking a run at it?”

“None at all, Colonel,” Woolsey replied. “I think it would be prudent to take action now, before we find ourselves having to chase yet another hive across the intergalactic void.”

Caldwell nodded once and was about to stand when everyone’s radios chirped. “Mr. Woolsey?” Chuck said. “Need you in Stargate Ops, please.”

“I’ll be right there,” Woolsey replied and dismissed the meeting.

Rachel left, but everyone else followed Woolsey to Stargate Ops. Dean noticed in passing that the Gate was active, sending the first batch of former hosts back to Earth.

Chuck looked up from his laptop as Woolsey approached. “Sir, I was just about to email my sister when I got an email from her, asking if we could Skype. She’s never asked me that before. Sounds like she knows something’s wrong.”

Woolsey nodded thoughtfully. “Very well. Make arrangements, and we’ll set you up in the isolation room.”

“Yes, sir,” Chuck replied and started typing. A minute or so later, his computer pinged with another email. “An hour from now?”

Woolsey checked his watch. “All right.”

Chuck nodded once and responded, and the Gate shut down.

“We’ll send the ZPM back with the next wave,” said Caldwell. “That way the SGC doesn’t have to worry about having to dial out if the Gate’s not active then.”

“Good idea,” Woolsey agreed. “Thank you, Colonel.”

All the back and forth and dotting is and crossing ts took more of the hour than Dean expected, even though he really should have been used to the bureaucracy by now. Even so, when the appointed time arrived, the Gate was active, and Chuck was securely settled in the isolation room, with Sheppard, Woolsey, and the Winchesters watching out of sight from above. They could see his face, but not hers, and the intercom was set to allow them to hear what was being said but not be heard themselves.

“Hey, Gwennie,” Chuck said once the Skype connection was made.

“Hi!” Gwen replied with what sounded like a mixture of relief and false cheerfulness. “How’s life in the middle of nowhere?”

“Can’t complain. Can’t talk super-long; I’ve only got about half an hour before I have to go back to work.”

“Okay. Hey, did you ever figure out what happened with that case you needed my help with a few months back?”

“The graffiti-ed curse? Yeah, finally got it figured out, got the curse broken. Seems like the life never leaves you alone, even out here.”

She snorted. “You and that undisclosed location of yours.”

He smiled wryly, then sobered. “What’s going on, Sissy?”

She sighed audibly. “Look, I know you’re out of the life. I just... I don’t know who else to talk to about this.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Grandpa’s cousin Samuel is back.”

“Samuel. From Lawrence.”

“Yep.”

“The one who _died_ before we were born.”

“That’s the one.”

“How?! I mean, that’s weird, even for us.”

“I don’t know. He says he doesn’t know, but I’m not sure I believe him. Anyway, we got a call from him Saturday night. He asked everyone to come down to Greenville, to the big compound—you know the one.”

“Right.”

“We had a family meeting this morning with everyone. And he wants us all to start _capturing_ monsters instead of killing them. He’s especially looking for Alphas, the first of their kind. I don’t know what he’s after, but... there’s been a lot of weird monster activity the last six months or so, stuff we’ve never even heard of coming out of the woodwork. And then _this_. It just....”

“Doesn’t seem kosher.”

“No. Exactly. Mark even told me he thinks something’s wrong.”

Chuck blinked. “Mark _spoke_ to you? World must be ending. Again.”

Gwen snorted. “And Samuel’s not the only one acting weird. Christian’s been picking on Mark, giving him a hard time about being Great-Gran’s replacement for Samuel.”

“What?! If Great-Gran wanted anyone to take over for Samuel, it was Ed and Rob, not his own sons. Besides, it’s not like it’s _Mark’s_ fault Great-Gran’s third wife was barely legal.”

Dean suddenly felt somewhat better about Henry and Josie. He might not ever be fully at ease with their relationship, but at least they were both of age—the _same_ age—and had known each other all their lives. Poor Mark sounded like the product of one hell of a May-December romance.

“I know!” Gwen agreed. “And on top of all that, we’re not just supposed to be looking for monsters. I mean, that, yes, is disturbing enough. But....” She paused and sighed.

“What?” Chuck prompted.

“Do the names Sam and Dean Winchester mean anything to you?”

Dean’s blood ran cold, and Dishon swore.

Chuck, to his credit, didn’t give anything away. “Mary’s sons?”

“Yeah, and supposedly the guys who started the Apocalypse. After what happened to the rest of Samuel’s side of the family, everyone’s been deliberately avoiding contact.”

“Explains some things,” Sam muttered.

“But now Samuel’s looking for them,” Gwen continued. “I’m not sure if he wants to get their help with this monster capture project or what. He said something about their maybe being mixed up with some group called the Men of Letters that he wants to talk to them about.”

“I see,” was all Chuck said.

Dean heard footsteps behind them and thus wasn’t totally surprised when Lisa and Teyla joined the group at the window. Lisa put a hand on the middle of his back.

“Nobody can find them, though,” Gwen went on. “Christian tried everything, but he can’t find any trace of them—I mean, they’re officially dead, but word through the grapevine is that they’re still out there somewhere. One of Johnny’s friends had heard they were in Cicero, Indiana, but Samuel called around and found out they moved to Sioux Falls last year with Dean’s girlfriend. So Christian called somebody to go to the girlfriend’s house, but nobody’s there, and she pulled her son out of school all of a sudden—just called the school and left a message. Checked on a hunter friend of the boys, but same thing. It’s like they disappeared into thin air.”

Lisa grabbed Dean’s arm, and he put it around her waist, pulling her close against his side.

Gwen paused. “I just... something’s _wrong_ here, Charlie. The whole thing’s creepy, and I... I don’t know what to do.”

Chuck stood and paced away from the computer, just long enough that Gwen wouldn’t see him look up at Woolsey. But Woolsey looked at Sam, who nodded once. Chuck nodded back and went back to his seat with a sigh.

“Charlie?” Gwen prompted.

“I can’t tell you how I know this, Gwen,” Chuck said gravely. “But you’re right that Samuel’s lying about not knowing how he came back. He’s working for Abaddon.”

There was a stunned pause before Gwen exploded, “ _WHAT?!_ ”

Chuck held up his hands. “You can trust Mark, right?”

“Of course. Absolutely.”

“You can tell him. I know he won’t say anything because he never says anything at all if he can help it. But don’t trust _anyone_ else, especially Christian. Acting that weird, I’d say he’s probably possessed.”

Gwen swore. “What can we do?”

“I don’t know. But keep me in the loop, okay? Especially if you hear something about looking for Purgatory.”

“ _Purgatory?!_ What the hell—”

“Sissy, I _can’t tell you._ It’s classified.”

Gwen sighed. “What about the Winchesters?”

“I’ll see what I can do. Just—be careful, okay? You and Mark.”

“Okay. I promise.” Gwen paused. “You’re not planning to come home for Christmas, are you?”

Chuck shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Could use you here for moral support, but honestly, it’s probably better for you not to get mixed up in this mess any more than it sounds like you already are.”

Chuck smiled a little at that.

“Take care of yourself, bro.”

“You, too, Gwennie.”

And with that, the call ended. Chuck looked up to the observation window again, and Woolsey nodded his approval, while both Winchesters flashed him a thumbs-up. Nodding back, Chuck started picking up his laptop.

“I should go alert the SGC,” Woolsey said quietly and left.

Sheppard looked at Dean. “We’ll meet you guys in the mess hall.”

Teyla gave Lisa’s arm a friendly squeeze at the same time Sam squeezed Dean’s shoulder, and they left, giving Dean space to finally pull Lisa into a tight hug. She needed it as much as he did—she was shaking.

“We’re safe here,” he whispered.

She sniffled. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

“It’s okay.” He kissed her temple. “It’s okay.”

“I didn’t want to believe you.” Her breath hitched. “If you hadn’t—”

“Shh. It’s okay, Lis. You’re here.”

She clung to him a moment longer before saying, “Let’s not tell Ben until Christmas. Make it a gift, a surprise. I think he already wants to stay.”

“Okay. We can do that.”

She pulled back enough to look him in the eye and smiled a little. “Thanks for not saying ‘I told you so.’”

He kissed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chuck's relationship to Gwen is established in "Sufficiently Advanced Technology," which also explains the curse he got her help in researching. As for Mark, in order for him to be "something something twice removed," he has to belong to Samuel's generation on the family tree even though he's closer to Sam and Dean in age, which means... well. 
> 
> And just in case it needs clarification: Time in Heaven is fluid relative to Earth, though apparently SPN's Heaven isn't quite the Timeless Halls. We've never been given a conversion factor, the way we have with Hell, so it's difficult to gauge whether there even _is_ a standard conversion factor. However, assuming that "a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day," it's entirely possible for two days of Earth time to pass in the seemingly brief period in which Raphael and Gabriel argue.
> 
> Finally, Raphael and Gabriel's argument was inspired (loosely) by a similar scene in jennytork's "Unify," which I heartily recommend.


	11. Chapter 10: Can't Be Vinced

Caldwell didn’t return until late the next day. That in itself wasn’t surprising, given the distance between Atlantis and M2Y-559. What was surprising was the news he dropped on everyone at supper when he got back.

“Have any trouble taking out that hive?” Sheppard asked him.

“What hive?” Caldwell returned. “By the time we got there, it was nothing but shrapnel.”

“What?!” McKay gasped.

Caldwell sighed and sat down. “We scanned the debris field and found a fading energy signature. Kavanagh said it’s consistent with Asgard weapon fire.”

Sheppard leaned back a little and narrowed his eyes. “That’s _convenient_.”

“You’re telling me. ’Course, if it was the Asgard, I’m just glad they didn’t show up until _after_ the hive took care of the demons.”

Ronon frowned. “Why would they show up at all?”

“Well, Todd said the queen had set up some kind of distress signal,” McKay replied. “Emergency message, broadcasting on a wide range of subspace channels. Maybe the Asgard picked up something—or the Genii, if they’ve somehow managed to reverse-engineer weapons from that ship they stole. Kind of doubt it, though.”

Teyla tilted her head a little. “Didn’t the Asgard reject Shiana’s warning?”

“Well, we are talking about Shiana,” Lorne noted. “She makes Madame Defarge look like a sweet old lady.”

“True,” McKay conceded, “but even if the Asgard think the rest of the galaxy’s lost its collective mind, they hate the Wraith enough to be willing to check out a distress signal and take out a hive that’s basically a sitting duck. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

Ronon snorted in agreement.

“Still makes me a little nervous, whether it’s Asgard or Genii,” Sheppard admitted. “I’m not opposed to taking out hives, don’t get me wrong. But if the Wraith decide to stake out the edge of the galaxy just in case, we’re better off leaving ’em there.”

Caldwell huffed. “Good luck convincing the Asgard of that.”

Lisa leaned toward Sam a little and whispered, “Who are the Asgard?”

“Think Roswell,” Sam whispered back.

He would have explained further, but his train of thought was derailed by the sudden realization that Dean was giving Ben a summary of _A Tale of Two Cities_ to explain who Madame Defarge was. When would he....

 _When you were at Stanford_ , Salim answered before Sam could fully formulate the question. _He wanted to be able to converse intelligently with you about the books you’d read, at least the ones that were of interest to him._

Sam blinked.

 _Oh, you might be quite surprised at the books your brother has read_ , Salim continued casually. _Dishon was rather surprised at the ones Dean knew well but Mary didn’t._

_Mary—you mean Dr. Adamson?_

_Yes. Vonnegut you know about, of course, and Tolkien you deduced, but... yes, much more Dickens than Mary or Peter would have expected. Mary’s interests lay more with Jane Austen and things called “traveling pants” and “ya-ya sisterhood.”_

Sam nearly choked.

And Dean noticed. “What?” he asked warily.

Sam coughed. “Nothing... Darcy.”

Dean turned purple. “Shut. Up.”

Sam grinned unrepentantly but shut up and watched his back for three days. Yet somehow, coming out of _kel’no’reem_ on the fourth day to find himself sporting a regulation haircut was almost worth it.

Salim, of course, thought Sam deserved it.

After that, though, December settled into a relatively normal routine, which gave Ben and Lisa the ability to take their time learning about the city, the expedition, and the rest of the galaxy. The biggest differences from before the trip to Earth were that Sam’s assignment had become the continued translation of his section of Janus’ journal and Zelenka put Dean on a team researching how to turn a Prior inhibitor into something that would inhibit the demons’ ability to use the new combat techniques Abaddon had learned from Ion. The Nox solved the problem almost before Dean started on it, however—which both pleased and annoyed Dean—and also adapted the design so the device attached easily to a Gate _and_ added a feature that generated a field containing a devil’s trap just past the event horizon, essentially creating a demon-proof iris. Their willingness to share surprised everyone but SG-1, who had seen firsthand just how close to the line Lya had been willing to walk in the past.

By the week before Christmas, therefore, the SGC’s contractors had manufactured enough of the demon inhibitors to prepare the _Apollo_ to bring a shipment out to Pegasus. Most Pegasus cultures relied on the Stargate network for trade and couldn’t afford to bury their Gates, so even though the combined efforts of the Wraith and the angels had so far succeeded in keeping the demons from reaching Pegasus again, Landry and Woolsey agreed that the galaxy needed the extra protection. There was no guarantee that Abaddon wouldn’t find a way to improve the Alliance ships’ hyperdrives, after all, or that there wasn’t a hellmouth hidden on some other planet that would give her a back door into the galaxy.

Shortly after that news arrived, Sam was taking a walk through the city’s halls, in deep discussion with Salim trying to solve an Ancient knowledge puzzle that held the key to decoding the next section of Janus’ journal, when he was startled to hear Woolsey call, “Ms. Braeden! May I speak to you for a moment, please?”

It took a moment of looking around for Sam to determine that he wasn’t within sight of Lisa or Woolsey. Still, curious and concerned, he moved over to a wall so as to be out of the flow of traffic while he eavesdropped.

“How are you enjoying your stay in Atlantis?” Woolsey asked cordially.

“Fine,” Lisa replied, sounding surprised but honest. “It’s very different from what I imagined, but the people are nice, and... yeah, she’s a beautiful city.”

“I... take it you intend to stay, then.”

“Um. Yes, but—”

Sam pictured Woolsey holding up a hand as he interrupted, “Visitors don’t usually refer to Atlantis as ‘her.’ Those who do tend not to remain only guests for very long.”

Lisa probably blushed at that. “Well, that’s the way Dean talks about her. I guess I picked up his habit.”

“It wasn’t a criticism. In fact, had you not already made up your mind, I was going to extend an official offer, especially in light of what we know about Samuel Campbell.”

“Yes! Yes, that pretty well sealed the deal—but we’re planning not to tell my son until Christmas Day, make that one of his presents.”

“I can certainly understand. Is Ben enjoying himself? He seems to be, the few times I’ve seen him.”

“Definitely! In fact, I just left him down in the hologram room getting another tutorial. I haven’t seen him this excited about history... ever!”

Woolsey chuckled. “Gen. Landry wanted me to ask whether you would agree to move your household officially to Colorado Springs.”

“I don’t see why not, sure.”

“He also asked whether there’s anything remaining at your house that you’ll need. This supply run by the _Apollo_ may be our last for some time.”

“Oh? Why?”

“There’s been another assault on the Pentagon. The wards held this time, but Gen. O’Neill is preparing to cancel all Earth-side leave and confine all personnel already on Earth to warded areas, purely for their own protection. Inias has already confirmed that the _Apollo_ ’s crew has not been compromised, but... until this is over, we can’t be too careful.”

“W-what about Bobby and Henry?”

“Being only civilian consultants, they’re not subject to the general’s orders. I’m sure they’re taking due precautions, though.”

“Rotten timing for everyone else,” Lisa remarked, voicing Sam’s own thoughts on the matter.

Woolsey hummed in agreement. “Unfortunately, Abaddon won’t be allowing us a Christmas truce—or Hanukkah, for that matter.”

“No, or Diwali.” Lisa sighed audibly. “I can think of a few things I might need. Of course, the biggest one is some kind of homeschool curriculum for Ben.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged. Shall we discuss the matter further in my office? We should also take a look at the PT schedule to see when you might offer your classes.”

Lisa agreed, and suddenly Sam couldn’t hear any more. Blowing the air out of his cheeks, he pulled himself together and turned the nearest corner to find...

... no one in the hall except Dean, who was coming toward him. “Hey,” Dean said.

“Hey,” Sam returned. “Where’s Lisa?”

Dean frowned. “In the Gateroom.”

Sam blinked. He wasn’t sure where in the city they were, but if he had to guess, he’d say they were closer to one of the piers than to the Gateroom, which was in the central tower. Deciding not to worry yet about how he’d managed to hear Lisa’s conversation from halfway across the city, though, he said, “Um. I... just heard that O’Neill’s—”

“About to cancel all Earth-side leave. Yeah, I know. Lantea told me.”

Lantea. Oh, of course. She _would_ want the brothers to have heard that conversation.

“Probably means he won’t let Bobby and Henry come out for Christmas,” Dean continued, sounding disappointed.

Sam blinked again. “You... actually want to spend time with Henry?”

“You got a problem with that?”

“No, no, it’s just... the whole thing with Josie and all....”

Dean winced a little but replied, “I just like having the whole family in one place, y’know? Makes it easier to keep everyone safe.”

For someone Sam had known literally all his life, Dean never ceased to amaze him. Sam felt the old familiar surge of annoyance and affection as he noted, “As long as they stay in the bunker, nothing can get to them.”

Dean conceded the point with a tilt of his head, but Sam could tell that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to worry. Yet all Dean said was, “At least we’ve finally got Ben and Lisa out here.”

Sam smiled at that. And as they headed back the way Dean had come, falling into step out of nearly ancient habit, Sam casually bumped Dean’s shoulder. Dean bumped back and started asking about the status of the journal translation.

And neither brother let on to Lisa that Lantea had let them eavesdrop on her conversation with Woolsey.

So apart from the grousing of people who’d had plans to return to Earth for Christmas, the holiday season was pretty quiet and normal by Atlantis standards. Dean and Lisa took Ben aside before breakfast Christmas morning to drop the dual bombshell of Lisa’s decision and Dean’s paternity, and the poor kid was too overwhelmed to speak until Torren pounced on him in the mess hall and started demanding to know all his favorite Christmas traditions. Sam and Dean and the Tok’ra exchanged video greetings with Bobby and Henry mid-morning, and Dean was reassured by Bobby’s report that everything was progressing as well as could be expected on their end. But then some of Teyla’s Athosian friends came to join in the international festivities and even brought some Pegasus-native bird roasted like turkey to share, and war took a back seat in everyone’s mind for the rest of the day. The same was true of New Year’s. And after that, it was back to work as usual, while Ben and Lisa continued peacefully settling in as they waited for the last of their stuff to arrive on the _Apollo_.

Sam couldn’t help wondering how long the peace would last.

* * *

Bobby crossed his arms. “Dragons aren’t real.”

“Nonsense,” Henry replied, pulling a massive illuminated bestiary off a shelf in the library. “You’re only saying that because no one’s seen any for seven hundred years.”

Bobby rolled his eyes.

“What makes you so sure this thing in Portland is a dragon?” Rufus pressed.

Henry hauled the bestiary over to the nearest table. “There’s been a spike in petty gold thefts—rings, watches, necklaces, all minor things that wouldn’t attract much attention individually but might make the beginning of a good hoard. The victims are young, unmarried women, all of them ‘good girls’ according to the news reports.”

Bobby frowned. “Virgins?”

Henry tilted his head. “Hardly a discreet question to ask, I know, but it’s something to check into. And then there’s Sky King—I mean, Penny Dessertine’s beau, recovered miles from the crash site and burned beyond recognition. That to me sounds like a fairly standard dragon infestation.”

Bobby shot a questioning look at Rufus, who simply said, “I’m glad I ain’t the only one who thought of _Sky King_.”

Sighing, Bobby couldn’t help wishing they hadn’t found this place. Sure, it was even more secure than his house, though not nearly as comfortable, and the ancient computer (or was that Ancient computer?) was doing a great job of helping them keep tabs on this Purgatory mess. But the reason it pinged the map table for Portland hadn’t made any sense, given how far outside their usual hunt parameters the case seemed to be. Or at least, it hadn’t made sense until Henry had started digging through the reports and showed just how much skill John had inherited from his old man without knowing it. Now... well, Bobby had to admit the explanation fit as well as anything, but he wasn’t quite ready yet to let his list of nonexistent critters get narrowed down to only unicorns.

Life was so much simpler before the Apocalypse.

Henry slipped on a pair of cotton gloves and carefully paged through the bestiary until he reached the section on dragons. Bobby and Rufus could both read upside down, though, and kept up as best they could as Henry skimmed through the Latin text, which seemed to be pretty standard lore aside from noting that some dragons could take human form.

“They settle in caves,” Henry noted out loud. “Could be a challenge in a place like Portland. But someplace secluded, dark, and dank—”

“Sewers,” said Rufus, who’d spent far more time in cities than Bobby had.

Henry nodded. “Could work, sure.”

“So how do we kill one?” Bobby asked.

Henry turned the page and skimmed further before answering, “Says here, ‘Only a blade that has drunk of a dragon’s blood at its forging may taste the blood of a dragon in slaying.’ So... a sword that was quenched in dragon’s blood when it was forged?”

Rufus nodded. “Bet those are pretty damn rare, though.”

“Mm. Here’s a list of the few this author knew of—Excalibur; Gram, the Sword of Wieland; Balmung, the Sword of Siegfried; the Sword of St. George; the Sword of Yvain, ‘whom the Germans call Henry the Lion and the Czechs Bruncvik’—”

Bobby let slip a Tok’ra curse and didn’t realize it until Rufus looked at him funny.

Henry looked up. “What? Bruncvik sounds familiar?”

“More than familiar. That sword’s in the States—and I know who’s got it. Old girlfriend of mine.”

Rufus blinked. “You don’t mean _Ellie Visyak_ , do you?”

“I do.”

Henry frowned. “Eleanor Visyak? _Doctor_ Eleanor Visyak?!”

Now it was Bobby’s turn to blink. “How the hell do _you_ know about her? She’s my age.”

“Not unless there’s some extremely strange coincidence... or perhaps the woman you know is the daughter of the woman Larry Ganem brought to Normal to lecture on medieval lore a few times. Do you know anything about her family?”

Bobby thought for a moment. “Never came up, honestly.” Hell if he was going to explain _why_ , but their conversations hadn’t covered much beyond the hunt and the bedroom. “We didn’t exactly part on good terms, either, so I ain’t gonna ask her now.”

Henry’s frown deepened, and he looked away. “There was something in Janus’ journal, from 1937, something about the death of H. P. Lovecraft and the disappearance of a woman called Eleanor....”

“We can figure it out later,” Rufus interrupted. “Main thing is, Ellie’s got this Sword o’ Burgoo—”

“Bruncvik,” Bobby and Henry corrected at the same time, though Bobby suddenly realized it had been a while since breakfast.

“—and we’re gonna have to play nice to get it, and if there’s one thing that don’t include, it’s askin’ the lady her age.”

Bobby sighed. “You wanna eat now or later, Rufus?”

Rufus considered. “We better eat in the car. Frisco’s a hell of a long drive, and ain’t no sense riskin’ any more lives than we have to.”

“All right. You comin’, Henry?”

Henry hesitated. “Actually, I think I should stay here in case you need more research. I should see if I can find those entries about Lovecraft in Janus’ journal, too; they might be relevant.”

“Think you’ll be all right here by yourself?”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

 _Because it’s barely been two months since your world ended, idjit_ , Bobby thought but didn’t say. He knew all too well the futility of arguing with a Winchester who insisted he was fine. “Suit yourself,” he said instead. “Just make sure you touch base with Landry or somebody every day, so we know Abaddon ain’t found a way through the wards.”

“Oh, sure, no problem. And I’ll call if I find anything.”

Stifling his misgivings, Bobby bade Henry farewell and followed Rufus first to the kitchen, for enough food to get them to a town with a drive-through, and then to the garage, where Cas had delivered the Chevelle shortly before Christmas. And then they were off, almost like old times... except that now they were old _timers_ and had to stop for the night in Cheyenne. Once they finally reached San Francisco, Rufus dropped Bobby at the library to check for any further abductions and came back an hour later with a triumphant grin and a broadsword in the trunk.

“Do I want to know how you got that?” Bobby asked warily.

Rufus shrugged. “‘Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil’—only this time there wasn’t an anvil.”

Bobby snorted and closed the trunk. “Let’s go, Palomides. Got another possible attack, Catholic schoolgirl. Knocked her down, clawed her up, and took her purity ring.”

“Gold?”

“Yup.”

Rufus cursed in Yiddish, and they were off again.

They were just about to Mount Shasta when Bobby’s phone rang. “I found the entries on Lovecraft,” Henry reported. “Had to get Dr. Jackson’s help, since the Ancient text was somewhat encoded, but we cracked it.”

Bobby put him on speaker. “Let’s hear it.”

“Lovecraft threw a dinner party on March 10, 1937. He and his friends had been dabbling in black magic, trying to open a portal between dimensions; he apparently tried to get information from the Men of Letters, but when they refused to help him, he consulted with the Campbells. Janus doesn’t say what help they provided, only that Moishe Campbell met with Lovecraft. Anyway, the spell cast at the dinner party succeeded in reaching Purgatory, but no one knew it at the time. The spirit that came through possessed Lovecraft’s maid, Eleanor Westborough. Within the year, everyone who’d been at the dinner party was dead except for Eleanor, who disappeared, and her son, who was committed when he claimed his mother had become a monster.”

“So?” Rufus prompted. “What happened next?

“Well, that’s why Janus encrypted most of these entries. He found Eleanor a year later at Cambridge, working on a doctorate under the name Eleanor Visyak. She’s some kind of half-ascended Ancient-monster hybrid, native to Purgatory. Evidently the human Eleanor Westborough died when she came into contact with Visyak’s spirit—that much was purely accidental. But the reason Visyak killed Lovecraft and his guests was to prevent them from spreading knowledge of the spell to open Purgatory. She even destroyed every copy of the spell she could find. She hated Menva and wasn’t thrilled to meet another Ancient, but she swore to Janus that she would do everything in her power to keep that dimension sealed. Janus in turn swore to record her secret ‘only for those with eyes to see and wit to understand true danger,’ and once she had her degree, he introduced her to the Letters as a specialist consultant.”

After a pause, Rufus said, “I thought she let me take that sword too easy. She wants us to stop them dragons.”

“But why the hell would the _dragons_ want to open a door to Purgatory?” Bobby asked.

“No idea yet,” Henry confessed. “The bestiary says they’re clever creatures and have their own lore, but that doesn’t help much... unless maybe they’re trying to help Menva return to Earth or something.”

Bobby sighed. “All right, keep digging. We’ll see what we can find out in Portland tomorrow.”

The long drive ended with a short night, followed by plenty of coffee. But by mid-morning, Agent Jackson and Agent Willis were hard at work asking awkward questions and generally not finding anything to contradict the conclusion that they were in fact dealing with dragons. Then came the challenge of finding an accurate map of the city’s sewers, locating the most likely area in which the dragon might be hiding, and gearing up to go spelunking.

“I’m too damn old for this,” Bobby groused as they headed out once more.

Rufus slapped him on the back. “Chin up, baby boy. At least we beat the Campbells to this one.”

“Yeah, and Abaddon. Makes me wonder if we ain’t got more help than just Ellie.”

“Gift horse, Bob. Gift horse.”

“I know, I know. I just wonder, is all.”

But nothing angelic or demonic showed itself between the time they got into the car and the time they slew both of the dragons in their lair and rescued the captured virgins, who helped cart the stolen gold and the dragons’ grimoire up to street level. Portland PD came quickly to get the girls checked out and returned to their families, and Bobby and Rufus went wearily back to their motel, washed off the worst of the sewer stink, and crashed into bed.

Both hunters were too exhausted to even think about driving back to Frisco the next day, never mind clear back to Lebanon. So Rufus worked on cleaning the Sword of Bruncvik and sorting through the gold hoard, and Bobby tried to glean as much from the grimoire as he could. The dialect was somewhere between Ancient and classical Latin, despite its probable fourteenth-century provenance, but what little he could make out hinted that Henry’s guess had been right. _Mater_ or _Mater Omnia_ was the only name given, but the text was clearly about Menva and Purgatory and how to spring Menva from her captivity. The exact spell, however, appeared to have been on one of the human-skin pages missing from the beginning of the book.

The sun had nearly set that afternoon, with Bobby not much the wiser, when the ground suddenly shook.

Seconds later, Bobby’s phone rang. “Bobby!” Henry hollered over a blaring alarm. “We’ve got a Class 4 event at Mount Rainier!”

Bobby uttered one of Dean’s favorite Goa’uld curses. “There musta been more than two dragons!”

“What can you do?”

“Hell if I know, but we’ll go do it!”

Rufus was already halfway out the door by the time Bobby hung up. They checked out hurriedly and sped north toward Olympia, where they discovered that the Seattle-Tacoma metroplex had also been subject to a rash of kidnappings. It took longer than Bobby had hoped to get enough support to head out to Mount Rainier, but the emergency team was needed when they found the abandoned van full of victims—all but one of the girls who had gone missing were there.

Unfortunately, the vics all told the same story the next day. The dragon they hadn’t caught had taken the still-missing girl up to the lip of the suddenly active volcano... and when he brought her down again, her dress was dirty and singed, and he addressed her as Mother. The police assumed a more natural form of assault, but Bobby and Rufus knew the truth.

“Ellie’s gonna kill us,” Bobby said when they got back to the car.

Rufus sighed. “Hell, Bob, not like we knew there even was more’n one to begin with. But I guess we oughta see if they’re still in the area.”

“Yeah. Reckon so.”

But the trail was already cold by then. No omens had shown up since the earthquake, and there were no more assaults or kidnappings that fit the dragon’s profile—naturally, since he already had what he was after. Even Balthazar, who showed up around suppertime, didn’t have much intel to share. Bone weary, Bobby was about to give up and call it an overdue night when his phone rang again.

“Mr. Singer?” Gen. Landry asked. “Have you heard from Henry today?”

Bobby took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he thought. “No, not since the earthquake yesterday. Why?”

“He’s not answering his phone or email.”

* * *

When Henry came back to awareness, he had a terrible headache and a very spotty memory. The last thing he remembered clearly after getting the alarms silenced was being trapped in the memories of the night the Letters fell, unable to get the screams to stop. He’d tried to drown them out in a way he seldom chose, a way that still seemed like the safest of the many options the bunker had to offer. He hadn’t been aware what time it was when he started drinking, how much he’d drunk, how much time had passed. All he’d known were the screams that would not stop... until a hand had gently pulled the glass from his grasp and helped him to his feet.

A deep voice that was faintly familiar had said something he hadn’t caught. A female voice as familiar as his own had said, “I’ll look after him.”

He didn’t remember what he’d said, if he’d said anything. He thought he remembered hands going where they shouldn’t, but he didn’t remember much of a struggle or even a protest—maybe one or two “You’re drunk”s, but then she’d caught his seeking mouth with her own, and then... stumbling through the nearest open doorway... and after that was all a blur, although the aftermath was plain enough even through the pain and lingering haze of alcohol, even though he hadn’t opened his eyes yet, given that she was still draped over him like a blanket.

Then she stirred and started trying to kiss him awake. His response was automatic, what little of his rational mind was functioning shutting down again under his body’s assault of more, yes, now. He heard himself calling a name over and over... he was only partly sure it was the right one.

Finally, however, all was still and quiet again, and she was settled with her head on his shoulder, and his mind slowly cleared enough for the sour state of his stomach to feel an awful lot like guilt.

“Josie,” he said thickly, “we need to stop.”

He caught sight of flame-red hair as Josie turned her head to look at him with puzzled blue eyes. “I thought you wanted this.”

“I do. That’s the problem.”

“Henry, you’re not married anymore.”

“Yes, but you and I aren’t married.”

“Well, we can fix that. Nebraska doesn’t have a waiting period.”

He ignored that. “And what if you’re pregnant?”

She caressed his surprisingly fuzzy-feeling cheek. “Look, I will never be Millie, and any child we might have will never be John. I know that. I’m not asking you to replace them. I’m asking you to let me fill that void for you.”

“What... what will the boys say?”

“The boys are in another galaxy. And besides that, you’re _thirty years old_. It’s time to stop living in the past.”

He sighed and sat up. “I don’t know if I can. At least... not today.”

She sat up, too, but facing the headboard and looking down and away from him, and toyed with the edge of her pillowcase for a moment. “You should know... if I am pregnant, I’m keeping the child.”

“I wouldn’t have expected otherwise.” He hugged her and pressed a kiss into her hair. “I do love you. More than... all this. I always have. I hope you know that. And yes, maybe I do want to marry you. But now’s not the time. I’ve got a job to do here, and I can’t keep letting you distract me.”

She laughed bitterly.

“We’re at war. We’re both old enough to know what that means.”

She turned back to him. “Old enough to know that war doesn’t end when we want it to. If not today, then when?”

He looked away, unable to answer.

“Look, just give me today, all right? Let me be your war bride. Take me across the state line so we can have the ring and the vow and make it all official. I’ll go back to the SGC tomorrow if you want—but if I do go, Landry’s going to send someone else to be here with you.”

He frowned and looked at her again. “Landry? What’s Landry got to do with it?”

“He was looking for someone to check on you. I volunteered because I was worried, and Castiel brought me straight here from the SGC. You hadn’t checked in for two days.”

“Two _days?!_ ” He looked away in shock and ran a hand over his chin. That would account for the hangover and the length of his beard, but he’d had no idea he’d lost more than the one night. He drew his knees up to his chest and put his arms around them as if that would steady him better. “ _Two days...._ ”

She looked at him more closely. “You didn’t know?”

He shook his head and couldn’t stop the tear that escaped as his eyes closed. “All I knew was that I couldn’t stop the screaming.”

She turned around and started slowly rubbing his back, with nothing in the touch but comfort. “I know how it goes. At least you’re not the one who was tied up in shotgun while she caused it.”

He looked at her again. “You were awake?”

She nodded. “She wanted me to feel every bone snap, smell every drop of blood. It was... it was....”

He took her other hand in both of his and just held it. “You don’t have to tell me.”

She leaned her forehead against his with a small sob. And they sat like that for a long moment, her absently rubbing his back, him rubbing her hand, both crying quietly.

Finally, he drew in a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s get cleaned up and dressed and get me sober and checked in so I can take you across the state line and make an honest woman of you.”

She laughed, and he kissed her.

* * *

“Your grandfather got married yesterday.”

Dean looked up from his lunch to stare at Sheppard. “Excuse me?”

Sheppard looked up from the tablet where he was going over stuff that had come in with the latest data burst from Earth. “Henry, he and... Josie, says here they eloped yesterday.”

Dean let a Goa’uld curse slip.

 _Better her than a stranger_ , Dishon noted. _At least Henry and Josie have a history._

“That’s not the point, Dishon!”

Sam frowned. “Dean... we can’t expect him not to move on.”

“What if they have kids, Sammy?” Dean objected, sounding more plaintive than he meant to. “We—we could end up with uncles who’re younger than _Ben!_ That’s just _wrong!_ ”

Lorne started singing “I’m My Own Grandpa” until Dean hit him between the eyes with a wad of foil.

“What does elope mean?” Ben piped up.

Dean looked at Lisa with a smirk. “Something I ought to do to your mom one of these days.”

“Oh, _stop_ ,” Lisa laughed.

Sheppard cleared his throat. “That’s the _good_ news. The bad news is, Mr. Singer says the dragons managed to bust Menva out of Purgatory. And she’s as far off the radar as Abaddon is.”

Dean didn’t dare voice his thoughts about that in front of Ben, even in Goa’uld. Dishon was swearing enough for both of them anyway.


	12. Chapter 11: Turning the Tide

“What in the seven hells were you thinking, leaving Josie alone with Henry when he was blind drunk?” Gabriel asked Castiel.

Castiel blinked. “She said she’d look after him.”

“She _took advantage_ of him, kiddo!”

“They were already in love. I thought—”

“No, you didn’t think! If you had, you might have recognized how suspicious the timing was!”

Castiel frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“ _Clearly_.”

Raphael finally spoke up. “That Henry should have a flashback after being startled by the alarm heralding Menva’s return was natural enough. Its severity was not. Something wanted Henry sidelined.”

Castiel’s frown deepened. “The wards had not been breached, nor was Josie possessed.”

“That doesn’t rule out the possibility of a remote spell, inflaming and manipulating weaknesses that were already present in both Henry and Josie. Even simple suggestion could have been at work, depending on how low their defenses were against psychic assault.”

“Abaddon?” Gabriel suggested.

Raphael nodded. “Possibly, or one of her lieutenants. Even with Henry’s location both hidden and inaccessible, his pain would have been easy to spot for even a Screwtape-grade tempter assigned to watch for it.”

Castiel sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “I sensed no danger. I’m sorry, brothers.”

Gabriel huffed. “Well, no use cryin’ over tied knots. Question now is, where do we go from here?”

The sound of a throat clearing interrupted. “’Scuse me,” said a tenor voice. “I think I might be able to help you.”

The angels looked over at the newcomer at the door, who... looked like Chuck Shurley, except that he was dressed like an Ancient.

“Chuck?” Castiel asked.

The newcomer smiled apologetically. “Actually, it’s Caltus. Of Atlantis. I’d always been psionic, even before my ascension, but Zachariah couldn’t manipulate any of the human prophets the way he wanted to, and then the real Chuck Shurley died suddenly as an infant, so... Zachariah forced me back into mortal form to replace him and hid my memories. My—er, Chuck’s parents were none the wiser, and of course, I had no idea I wasn’t an average human until Zachariah started force-feeding me visions. But the memory block started to break down after his death and failed completely when Michael and Lucifer fell into the Cage. So I finished the last chapter of _Swan Song_ and... here I am.”

Raphael tried and failed several times to say something. Finally, he managed, “I had no idea.”

Caltus nodded. “I know. I felt your surprise when I ascended. Sorry I didn’t stick around to explain; I just... didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire again.”

“Which you would have,” Gabriel said flatly, “knowing my brothers. The other Ancients know you’re here?”

“They do. They sent me.”

“Why?”

Caltus walked over to the table where the angels were sitting. “Menva is our problem. Abaddon, technically, is yours. Neither you nor we can deal with either problem without the other’s help. But as a better writer than I once said, ‘’Tis most sweet / When in one line two crafts directly meet.’”

Raphael leaned forward. “We let Menva and Abaddon take out each other?”

“We don’t _let_ anyone do anything. We plot their course before they can plot ours.”

Gabriel smiled slowly and manifested a lollipop. “Now you’re talkin’ my language. Where do we start?”

Caltus met his eyes with an equally slow smile. “Samuel Campbell.”

* * *

Henry struggled to keep his focus on the page from Janus’ journal that he was staring at, or that was staring at him. And he wasn’t sure why. Bobby and Rufus hadn’t come back yet—Henry couldn’t remember whether they’d said they were going to Sioux Falls or to Colorado Springs—but as much as he missed having them there to steady him, he wasn’t sure he wanted them to see him like this.

Josie was fixing supper, he thought, maybe. That was good, if so, because he was hungry. But it was bad, too, because mealtimes somehow kept turning into playtimes, followed by guilt that he’d moved on from Millie so quickly and more guilt that he wasn’t getting any work done. Yes, he and Josie were married now, but still, he ought to have more self-discipline than this. Yet even though he hadn’t touched another drop of alcohol, he couldn’t help himself. It was like he was losing his mind, the way he kept thinking about her and only her.

He ached. He wanted. He needed—

A hand landed across the back of his neck, and he swayed forward as power surged through him, nearly blinding him. Hauling in a lungful of air with a deep gasp, he straightened again... and realized that his mind was clear for the first time in days.

“There, now,” said an unfamiliar male voice, as the hand moved down between his shoulder blades. “Easy. Deep breaths.”

Henry obeyed, taking deep breaths and releasing them slowly until his heart mostly stopped racing.

“That’s it,” said the stranger gently and took his hand away.

Henry turned to find a tall black man standing beside his chair, but it wasn’t Rufus. “Who are you?”

“My name is Raphael. It seems these wards can defend against anything but a psychic assault, at least not one as sophisticated as the spell Abaddon ordered laid upon your mind and Josie’s.”

“I—it—spell?”

Raphael nodded. “I have lifted it from you and placed wards upon your mind so that you can’t be attacked again in the same way. In a moment, I’ll do the same for your wife.”

And bang went any hope Henry had that the whole thing had been a nightmare. His eyes dropped to the table as his heart dropped to the floor. His left hand curled into a fist, as if to hide the ring he was wearing, and his left arm curled around his churning stomach. He wasn’t hungry anymore.

Raphael put his hand on Henry’s shoulder again. “There will be time for grief and rue later. Tonight you and Josie will need to talk. But tomorrow Bobby and Rufus will need you both to research—they’re on their way to a very dangerous hunt in Rhode Island.”

Henry swallowed hard and nodded. Then he looked up at Raphael again. “You’re much kinder than the boys had said.”

“I am now,” Raphael replied sadly. “They knew me as I was, and they told you the truth. The last few decades, I had forgotten God’s will and lost my way. But know this, Henry Winchester: if an archangel can find redemption for crimes beyond your comprehension, this weakness of yours can be forgiven, too.”

And then Henry was alone.

 _Library lights off_ , he commanded, looking down at the table again, and the library went dark. Somehow, he felt the need to hide, even though he didn’t think he could move because he felt so sick. Raphael’s words notwithstanding, he couldn’t believe he’d been such a fool.

A few minutes later, however, the lights came back on as Josie called, “Henry?”

He looked up to see her standing in the middle of the doorway, hugging herself—and too far from any of the manual controls to have turned on the lights that way. And the knot in his stomach tightened further.

“Hi,” he breathed.

She hesitated a moment before drifting further into the room with a wry chuckle. “Well, this is another fine mess I’ve gotten us into, huh?”

“I started it,” he replied, looking away and running his right hand over his face. He couldn’t remember much, but he did remember that.

She huffed. “Like I couldn’t have handled you. Do you have any idea how many idiots have made passes at me? I could have pushed you away. I could have knocked you out with a spell. I... I could have....”

“Josie.”

“Henry, you were _drunk_. Out of your mind drunk. But you were hurting and looking for comfort, and you wanted it from me. And you’re the only man I’ve ever loved, and... all I could think was, this was something I’d wanted for so long, and it was right there, and... God help me, I took it. And I shouldn’t have. And I shouldn’t have pushed you to marry me, either.”

“I could have said no.”

“But you did, and I still pushed. And I’m... I’m sorry.”

He peeled his arm away from his stomach and buried his face in his hands.

After a moment, she pulled out a chair at the next table and sat down. “Can you ever forgive me?”

He dropped his hands. “Kind of have to, don’t I?”

“No. You don’t owe me anything. You’d be within your rights to divorce me.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He finally looked over at her.

And she looked at him warily, still curled in on herself. “What _do_ you mean?”

“You haven’t noticed, have you?”

“N-noticed what?”

“You don’t have the ATA gene. I do. But suddenly the bunker is responding to your commands, like when you turned on the lights just now. That was you, not me.”

She was too bright not to reach the same conclusion he had, but he could tell from the fear that reared up in her eyes that she didn’t want to believe it. “What are you saying?” she pressed, her voice wavering.

He looked her in the eye. “Josie, you’re carrying my child.”

After a frozen moment, she lurched out of her chair and into his arms, sobbing. He held her close, unsure whether her tears were of terror, remorse, joy, or all three. He suspected she wasn’t sure, either.

As for him... well. He’d told her the truth. He loved her, and so he forgave her. He just didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself.

* * *

There was nothing Atlantis could do about Earth’s disasters right now. John hated it when there was nothing he could do, and he knew Dean felt the same way. Sam had just uncovered something in Janus’ journal and was going over it with Zelenka and McKay to see whether there was anything in Janus’ Atlantis lab that might correspond to whatever it was, but Dean didn’t have any projects at the moment, and with all the demon inhibitors delivered, John didn’t have any offworld missions in the offing.

So he and Dean were hanging out in the gym, watching Teyla teach Lisa a few new banto moves. Lisa was in a sport top and yoga pants; Teyla was in the sleeveless Athosian top and split skirt she often wore to teach in. And while Teyla was, well, Teyla, John could appreciate what Dean saw in Lisa as the two women practically danced through the banto routine.

“You gonna marry that girl?” he asked Dean quietly.

“Might,” Dean replied at the same volume. “You?”

John decided to dodge slightly. “I’m up for promotion next year, and so’s Lorne—good chance O’Neill’s gonna want me flyin’ a desk from then on, promote Lorne’s team to SGA-1. And TJ turns five next June.”

“Mm. Time to start school.”

“Yeah, although he’s already watching Ben and wanting to do school stuff with him. He may talk Teyla into starting him this fall. Whenever he does start, though, she’ll probably want to spend more time with him, homeschool.”

Dean gave John a sidelong look and smiled a little. He had his answer. But all he said as he returned his attention to the women was, “Bird colonel, huh? Awesome.”

And speaking of bird colonels, Cas appeared on the other side of Dean. “Dean, I owe you an apology.”

Dean didn’t turn to look at him. “What for?”

“My part in Henry and Josie’s marriage. I know you’re still uncomfortable with their relationship, and the marriage can’t have helped. But the situation was not what it seemed, and I was not aware of it.”

“You sic the cupids on ’em?”

“No, but—”

“Then it ain’t your fault, Cas. Forget it.”

Cas didn’t look like he was willing to forget it, but he did at least let the subject drop by not responding. Yet he didn’t leave, either.

Dean finally looked over at him. “What?”

“Where’s Sam?”

“Janus’ lab. Why?”

“I need to brief you both, and your superiors,” Cas added with a glance at John. “The Ancients have suggested a new strategy.”

“The Ancients?” John and Dean both echoed.

“You mean Henry found something in Janus’ journal,” Dean continued, “or....”

Cas shook his head. “No, the Ancients themselves. Because Menva is one of their number, they finally consider it their duty to get involved.”

John huffed. “Goa’uld, Replicators, Wraith, Ori, monsters, demons, fallen angels—not their problem. But one rogue scientist....”

“Menva is hardly just a rogue scientist,” Cas interrupted. “Many of her creatures worship her as a goddess, and their numbers are growing rapidly, both because Menva herself is giving birth to new monsters and because she has ordered all monster kinds to multiply as quickly as they can. Plus, with so many of the pagan gods now being dead, she is also harnessing the worship still offered to the great mother goddesses. Both kinds of faith are sources of immense power.”

John never had learned Goa’uld, but he had at least figured out from context when Dean was swearing in it. “How the hell do we fight her, then?” Dean continued in English.

“You don’t,” Cas said flatly. “There are few who can. But one is the Queen of Hell.”

“You want us to start working for Abaddon?!”

“No. There’s no need. We want you to make contact with someone who already does.”

Whether or not Dean could figure out where this was headed, John understood and tapped his radio. “Woolsey, McKay, Ronon, Winchester, Campbell, this is Sheppard. Need you in the conference room in five minutes for a briefing with Castiel.”

Various affirmatives followed in quick succession.

“Do you need me as well?” Teyla asked, not taking her eyes off Lisa.

“’Course,” John answered. “Don’t need to radio you when you’re in the same room, do I?”

Teyla smiled and launched into one last flurry of attack, which Lisa countered mostly with the correct moves but occasionally with something that looked more like tai chi. Dean yelled encouragements to Lisa, but John just sat back and enjoyed the view for two minutes. He was just about to call time when Lisa stumbled and tapped out.

“Are you all right?” Teyla asked as she helped Lisa to her feet.

Lisa smiled sheepishly and nodded. “Nothing injured but my pride.”

“Good. You’re improving. And I look forward to being fully repaid in our next yoga class,” Teyla added with a mischievous sparkle.

Lisa laughed, and Cas transported Teyla, John, and Dean to the conference room. The weird thing was, John was almost as used to Cas doing that by now as Dean was.

* * *

Abaddon lounged with diminishing patience on the throne in the heart of the alien ship, waiting for the Lucian Alliance delegation to arrive. The ship was once Goa’uld property; more than that, she neither knew nor cared. She wouldn’t even have bothered coming all this way to the middle of nowhere, but the Trust operative who’d summoned her had insisted, truthfully, that the Alliance was about to become troublesome. And she’d had too much success lately to let anyone stand in her way now, least of all some alien.

Finally, the doors to the chamber parted to admit the Alliance warlord who’d requested the meeting. The woman was human, though she had traces of something else in her blood, and she was furious.

“You’re late,” said Abaddon, unmoved.

“And you are reckless,” returned the warlord. “To expend lives in pursuit of one’s goals, that is the nature of war. But these assaults on other galaxies have decimated our fleet.”

“Build more ships.”

“We do not have the means.”

“Then steal them.”

“These ships _were_ stolen! And there are no more like them being built!” The warlord advanced toward Abaddon. “If you continue to jeopardize the might of the Lucian Alliance, we will terminate the agreement and send your followers back to Earth by force.”

Abaddon pretended to consider the ultimatum—and then flowed out of her current meatsuit, which was no longer fit to house Raphael or anyone else, and into the warlord. She rifled through her new host’s memories just long enough to glean what she needed to know to fool the rest of the Alliance, then locked the warlord’s consciousness away. One quick spell later, and the air was filled with demon smoke for a moment before her underlings possessed every human on the ship. A group of them entered and bowed low before her.

“Take care of that,” she ordered, gesturing to the corpse on the floor. “And continue the takeover as planned.”

Two of the demons came forward to collect the body while most of the rest scattered. Only one, who in life had been a priest of Moloch, remained after the others had gone.

“My queen,” he said, bowing low, “I bring news.”

Abaddon settled herself back on the throne. “Good or bad?”

“Both, Your Majesty. More bad than good, I fear.”

“Start with the good news, then.”

“Henry Winchester and Josie Sands have wed.”

She chuckled. “Saps. I’m sure she’ll keep him occupied.”

“Perhaps. The spell has been broken, but that much damage has already been done. And the tempter who cast the spell said he sensed a child’s conception.”

“Good. Have they been found?”

“Regrettably not, o queen.”

“That’s all right. Wherever they are, she’ll have to give birth sometime. And even if they don’t surface, we’ll be able to trace the child.”

She expected him to lick his lips at the thought. Instead, he said gravely, “We may not have nine months, Your Majesty. The dragons have betrayed us. Eve has returned. And she has commanded her offspring not to slay, save only at need, but rather to turn.”

“Very well. If the nerd wants a war, she can have one. We’ll just pull her power source out from under her. Tell Samuel Campbell to work on his collections faster.”

“He cannot. Four of his prisons have been destroyed since Eve’s rising, and we have not been able to discern how.”

She frowned. “Destroyed? As in....”

“There is a flash of light, and the building and all who were in it are vaporized.”

Her frown deepened into a scowl.

* * *

Gwen worried. She always worried—that she’d be caught, or Mark would, or that family members she cared about would die. Not that she wanted any of the family to die, but most were all gung-ho about Samuel’s catch-and-collect plan, even helping him torture the monsters for information, and that disgusted her. But she didn’t want Mark or any of her cousins to get killed.

Even so, when the time came, she stifled her qualms, activated the device Chuck had sent through a military courier while she was off on a solo hunt, and slipped it into the pocket of a djinn she was loading into the van for transport to another detention center. And when the van doors were shut, she smiled brightly at Christian, who was driving this trip, and walked away as if nothing were wrong.

Chuck had sworn that the device was only a locator beacon that broadcast through something called subspace, totally non-magical, and warded against anything detecting it other than whoever it was meant to signal. But Gwen knew it was no coincidence that every time she or Mark sent a prisoner off with a beacon in its pocket, its destination was wiped off the map within hours. She didn’t expect Chuck to tell her how it was done, but still... she worried.

“An _arachne?_ ” she heard Samuel bellow as she walked past the building that housed his office. “How the hell did you let Singer and Turner beat you to an _arachne?!_ —Well, fine, but do you have any idea how rare those things are? We could have.... WHAT?! How the hell did they know how to kill it? Last I heard, the Men of Letters weren’t....”

She tuned him out, silently congratulating Singer and Turner, whoever they were, for getting rid of whatever the hell the arachne was. And then she spotted Mark, with whom she’d left her phone after replacing it in her pocket with the beacon, coming toward her.

“Hey,” she said as they walked up to each other.

“From Chuck,” he reported quietly, handing her the phone.

 _Email_ was all the text said.

She pocketed the phone with a glance around to see if anyone was watching them. As the van pulled out, she could clearly see Christian in the driver’s seat, and he waved to her and Mark. She waved back, knowing that he’d _stay_ in that seat now—because she’d painted a devil’s trap under the seats of all the vans before launching the first beacon. Then she nodded for Mark to follow and headed into the building where her family was staying. Together, they went down to the heavily warded basement room where she kept her laptop now, and he watched silently as she pulled up the subspace connection the courier had installed to let her access a super-secret, super-secure email account. Only Chuck, and whoever set things up for him, had the address, and only Gwen knew the password.

So far, Chuck had only emailed her instructions for when and how to use the locator beacons. This time, though, he sent a much stranger request—and in some respects more dangerous, since it meant approaching Samuel personally with something technological.

“I’ll come with,” Mark said, putting a hand on the shoulder he’d been reading over. “Back you up.”

She bit her lip as she considered the offer, then nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

After acknowledging the email, they waited a couple of hours, got food, and shot pool until the time Chuck had instructed them to start their end of the mission. Then she gathered up her laptop and carried it to Samuel’s office, arriving just in time to see Samuel hang up his phone with a heavy sigh.

Sensing Mark’s reassuring presence arriving at her back, she knocked on the door jamb. “Have a minute, Samuel?”

Samuel looked up and took a deep breath. “Sure, Gwen, Mark. C’mon in.”

“Somethin’ wrong?” Mark asked as he followed Gwen into the room.

Samuel sighed again and looked down at his desk. “We’ve lost another one, and Christian and Johnny with it. I can’t figure out what the hell’s going on—it’s not nukes; it’s not angels.”

Gwen silently drew in a deep breath. “Well, I might have some good news for you for a change.”

Samuel looked up at her. “Great. Let’s hear it.”

“Kind of a long story, but there’s someone who wants to talk to you.”

“Okay. When and where?”

“Here and now. They, uh... it’s called Skype.” She held up her laptop.

Samuel groaned. “Gwen, you know I hate computers.”

“Mark and I can set it all up. All you have to do is look at the screen and talk.”

“Is this some intranets thing?”

She couldn’t help smiling; they’d given up trying to correct him over a month ago. “Yeah, it connects through the Internet.”

“Why can’t we just meet them in person?”

“They can’t come here. I don’t know why, I swear. And they won’t tell me where they are.”

Samuel huffed. “Oh, all right. As long as I don’t have to push any buttons on anything.”

Mark made short work of getting the computer set up and connected to the right network, and Gwen pulled up the right program and checked her watch to make sure she made the video connection at precisely the right moment. She didn’t know why they never had more than thirty-five minutes to talk whenever she Skyped with Chuck, but she did know it was important not to waste a second.

Then she got out of the way as the video image filled the screen—a darkened room, lit just enough to reveal the silhouettes of two men sitting in front of the camera, kind of like one of those exposé interviews where the source’s identity needed to be hidden. Not even the wall behind them was clearly visible, although if she squinted, Gwen thought she might be looking at the room where she normally saw Chuck.

“So, Samuel,” one of the men said, but his voice was distorted beyond recognizability. “We hear you’ve been looking for us.”

Samuel frowned, tilting his head a little this way and that as he tried to make out who was speaking. Then his eyes widened. “Dean?”


	13. Chapter 12: Empiricism vs. Empire

The man chuckled. “Not quite the Dean you remember.”

“I barely knew you,” Samuel returned, surprising Gwen. “Not that I could forget what happened in ’73, but even so. And a lot can change in thirty-odd years.”

“Precisely. More than you can possibly know. Unless, of course, your employer—”

“I work alone, in case you forgot.”

“That’s not what we’ve heard.”

“That’s also not what we see,” added the second man, his voice equally distorted.

Samuel frowned. “You must be my namesake.”

“Must I?” Dollars to doughnuts, that had been accompanied by a sardonically raised eyebrow.

“In any case, the fact that I’m not currently alone doesn’t mean—”

“Samuel. We know.”

Samuel shut up.

“But you apparently need some information from us.”

“What? No, no, I just... wanted to invite you back into the family business.”

The first man—Dean?—snorted. “Sure. Because you work alone.”

“And to ask you—”

“The Men of Letters are off limits. You’ll get nothing from us on that score—what we know, what we think, nothing. Because it’s so classified, not even the NSA knows.”

“But,” the second man—Sam?—continued before Samuel could object, “we can give you something else—information you actually need.”

Samuel frowned. “Go on.”

The guy who might or might not be Sam held up a hand. “First. Our price for this information is that you stop looking for us and for the Men of Letters.”

“Fine,” Samuel agreed... a little too readily, Gwen thought.

The guy who might be Dean turned to his companion and said something in a language Gwen had never heard before. The other man—she was just going to call them Sam and Dean for convenience!—replied in the same language.

“Well?” Samuel demanded.

The two men turned back to the camera. “The Mother of All has returned,” Dean said.

Samuel swallowed hard. “I’d heard rumors. Eve.”

“So she calls herself,” Sam replied. “That is not her true name.”

“What _is_ her true name?”

“Unimportant. What matters is that she possesses a psychic connection to all her offspring. And she has commanded them to turn, not to slay. Her purpose is to deny human souls to Abaddon.”

It was just as well that Gwen wasn’t supposed to know anything about Abaddon at all. This was the first she’d heard of the demon trying to collect souls, and she couldn’t have hidden her shock.

“What’s more,” Dean continued, “she is aware that someone is torturing monsters for information, in search of a way into Purgatory. She’ll stop at nothing to ensure that such knowledge remains hidden.”

Finding a way into Purgatory, a repository of souls. Chuck hadn’t hinted that that was what Samuel was up to, and Samuel had been diligent about covering his tracks where the family was concerned. All Chuck had said was that Samuel was working for Abaddon. Gwen felt sick.

For his part, Samuel couldn’t help paling but asked, “Why would anyone want into Purgatory?”

Sam leaned forward a little, though not enough to reveal his face. “Abaddon is trying to garner the power of as many souls as she possibly can to fuel an army that will release Lucifer and restart the Apocalypse.”

Dean nodded. “Any soul will do, human or monster. And all monsters are doomed upon their deaths to spend eternity in Purgatory. Abaddon covets that power source.”

And Samuel was helping her get it. Gwen found herself wishing that he’d been in that van instead of Christian or Johnny. The real Christian had probably died on a hunt a few weeks back, when he’d been shot and the demon claimed it had been just a graze, but Johnny was just a redshirt, following Samuel’s orders without question simply because he was family. He hadn’t deserved to die.

“Eve knows Abaddon’s desire,” Sam went on. “Her goal is to take as many souls out of circulation as possible, lock them away in Purgatory where Abaddon presumably can’t get at them. Once they’re turned, she doesn’t care how quickly they die.”

Samuel straightened in alarm. “So if she knew, say, the location of a place where monsters were being interrogated....”

“Chances are, she’d destroy it,” Dean answered. “If they’re dead, they can’t talk, and they’re also safe from anything Abaddon might do to their souls.”

“But it’d be a quick destruction,” Sam added. “She wouldn’t want her children to suffer.”

Samuel sat back and ran a hand over his mouth. “Tell me the truth, boys,” he said after a moment. “Why are you telling me all this? If you know something....”

“What we know about you matters less to us right now than saving the lives of innocent humans. We’re in the business of _saving people_ —hunting things just happens to be the way we do it.”

Samuel nodded slowly. “If... if that’s so... come back and work with me.”

“No,” they chorused.

“I _could_ track you down, you know. I could even classify you as a threat to the very innocent civilians you say you want to help. See, I’ve heard some things about you two as well.”

At that, two more men stepped into frame, flanking Sam and Dean. These men remained standing but were in enough light that their arms were visible—in more ways than one. The white man on the left bore a black wrist brace and a P-90; the man on the right had brown skin, a tribal tattoo, vambraces, and a fearsome-looking but unfamiliar pistol on his hip.

“You don’t want to do that, Mr. Campbell,” said one of the newcomers, his tenor voice quiet, dangerous—and undistorted.

“What the hell...” Samuel breathed.

Dean’s chuckle was still distorted. “Don’t try to figure it out. You’ve never seen our like before.”

“Wh—how do you know?”

“That’s classified,” growled a second new voice, lower than the first and also undistorted.

“And this conversation is over,” stated the first newcomer, and the call abruptly ended.

Samuel took a deep breath and let it out again. “Well, that was enlightening. Wish you two hadn’t heard it, but I’m sure you’ll trust me to decide what the rest of the family should know.”

Gwen sighed. “I didn’t know what they wanted, honest. They just said they wanted to talk to you.”

“There’s got to be a way to verify what they said. I can’t even be sure they were really Sam and Dean....” Samuel trailed off, staring at the computer screen but not really looking at it.

“We’ll go,” Mark said and gathered up the laptop before Samuel even registered that he’d spoken.

“What? Oh. Fine. I’ll... see you later. Just keep all this under your hats, will you?”

“Sure,” Gwen agreed.

Samuel nodded and went back to thinking hard.

Mark and Gwen beat a hasty retreat and didn’t speak to each other until they got back to the basement. Then he retrieved the whiskey bottle and shot glasses that were stashed in the bottom drawer of the desk, and she gratefully drank the shot he poured for her.

He downed his own and breathed, “What the _hell_....”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know.”

“Them beacons.”

“Monsters don’t work on subspace. But I’d bet cash money the rest of it’s true.”

“Was they really....”

“Sam and Dean?” She shook her head. “Hell if I know. But if they’re with my brother, the one thing I do know is, he’ll never tell me.”

“Classified.”

“Classified,” she agreed and held out her glass for another shot.

* * *

Meanwhile, Castiel stood outside a seemingly normal yet heavily warded cabin in the Cascades, trying very hard not to let on how revolted he was by what Menva had already done there in the course of adapting to her new corporeal form and testing and honing her powers. It was at least a mercy that the girl whose body she’d stolen had suffocated on the toxic volcanic fumes even before her corpse reached the lava in the crater of Mount Rainier. There were some things no human should witness.

Castiel couldn’t have killed Menva if he wanted to, of course. Her powers easily neutralized his, and she was standing just inside the open door to speak to him, thus staying behind the layer of anti-angel warding. But as it happened, his stated purpose was not to kill but to negotiate. Not that she was in a particularly diplomatic mood, but the attempt was necessary.

“Don’t lie!” she snapped. “I felt my children suffering, and then I felt their lives snuffed out in an instant. Don’t tell me the angels had nothing to do with it!”

“It was not our doing,” he repeated, choosing his words carefully to convey strict truth—just not all of it. “Perhaps Abaddon seeks to deny you worshippers on this plane, or perhaps she grows impatient with the speed of the search for your realm.”

“My realm?! _This_ is my realm, the one your Father robbed me of! My prison is no kingdom—it is eternal torment where my children fight constantly and there is nothing new to learn!”

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “All we ask is that you stop this plan to turn all of humankind into your children. By withholding innocent souls from Heaven, you risk arousing my Father’s ire once more.”

She huffed and started to close the door.

“And there are those among the Host who would rather God didn’t know what’s been happening lately.”

She paused and pulled the door all the way open again. “What are you saying?”

“We’re not your enemy. Humans are not your enemy. And your current strategy seems very much like that of the Replicators when they attempted to defeat the Wraith by destroying human worlds.”

Her eyes blazed, and her fists clenched. “How _dare you_ compare me to those mindless machines!”

“They were not mindless. Neither are you. I’m simply asking you to attack your true enemy directly. This scorched-earth approach may push more hunters and even angels into Abaddon’s camp. And that would mean disaster for your children.”

She looked at him closely for a long moment, her ire cooling as she considered the wisdom of his words. Then she nodded once. “I will think on it.”

He bowed and left, making his way above Earth’s atmosphere to the bridge of the _General Hammond_ , which was both cloaked and hidden from the senses of demons and monsters by wards devised by Gabriel and Ash. “How was that?” he asked Carter, handing her the hidden microphone he’d carried.

Carter smiled. “I think you sold it, Castiel. But we’ll find out soon enough whether she bought it. Mr. Singer’s at the SGC working on a way to patch the life-sign data we’ve collected through to the Men of Letters’ computer so that both of us can track monster activity with greater sensitivity. And then there’s this,” she added, pointing to a display that showed a strong orange life sign at the Campbell compound.

“Abaddon,” he realized.

She nodded. “Showed up about five minutes ago. Samuel’s probably filled her in on what Salim and Dishon told him, and I’d be willing to bet the reason she’s still there is that they’re arguing about whether he’s going to keep working for her.”

“Let’s hope John Campbell’s death gives him sufficient pause.”

She paused herself. “Yeah. Would have waited for John to leave the building once the beacon signal stopped moving, but we’d barely gotten the coordinates when someone destroyed the beacon. We couldn’t risk word getting back to Samuel; Gwen’s cover would have been blown. And the place was EMF-shielded somehow; we couldn’t get a lock on him to beam him out.”

He sighed. “You’re sure Menva and Abaddon won’t consider the possibility of the Asgard beam?”

“Positive. Menva doesn’t know that Earth made contact with the Othalla Asgard, let alone received weapons from them. And Abaddon knows it’s a ship-based weapon but won’t be able to find us with the new wards. As far as she knows, the only Earth ship in this part of the galaxy is the _Sun Tzu_ , and it’s twenty light-years away.”

“All right, then. Now we wait.”

* * *

The wait lasted four months of Earth time, during which life in Pegasus and most of the Milky Way returned to a more guarded version of normal. Many Wraith queens chose to stake out the Milky Way edge of Pegasus, but the attempted invasions ceased for the moment as Abaddon turned her attention away from (inter)galactic conquest to focus on “retaking” Earth from Menva. At the same time, thanks to the slightest nudge from a certain Trickster archangel, Menva began capturing demons and running truly diabolical experiments on them in an attempt both to pay back the torture of her creations and to search out a potential weakness in Abaddon. Abaddon retaliated by ordering that average monsters be slaughtered and only Alphas captured.

With a bit of stage management from the outraged Ancients, ensuring that the two sides crossed paths with a higher frequency than random chance, the conflict quickly escalated into a full-scale war worthy of a Peter Jackson movie. Chicago, in particular, fell prey to turf battles the likes of which the Windy City hadn’t seen since the end of Prohibition. Keeping hunters and civilians out of harm’s way became a full-time job into which Henry and Josie threw themselves without hesitation, and Bobby and Rufus returned to the bunker to help them track the action and dispatch hunters to hunts that weren’t likely to end up on the front lines, especially routine salt-and-burns. The angels likewise did their best to save as many human lives as they could. As for the Campbells, Samuel found himself unable to leave Abaddon’s service for reasons he wouldn’t or couldn’t explain, but he told the rest of the family enough to justify his granting them permission to stop working with him. Gwen and Mark quickly jumped ship and teamed up with Bobby and Rufus instead. Some foolhardy lone-wolf hunters still got themselves killed or captured, though, and with one side requiring blood to live and the other reveling in wanton destruction, some civilian deaths were inevitable.

But so was a showdown between Abaddon and Menva. As attrition rates skyrocketed, the collision course became locked in firmly enough that Raphael could carefully drop Abaddon’s location to Menva and vice versa and let the two parties do the rest. Initially, each side tried to assassinate the other’s leader, with no success. After about the fifth attempt, however, Menva had enough data on demons to be able to create a messenger that could survive long enough to take Abaddon a request for parley. Abaddon tried to kill it, failed, and sent it back with her acceptance.

Shortly thereafter, George Hammond walked into the Heavenly Roadhouse and called over the din, “Ash, there’d better be popcorn left.”

Behind the bar, Ash laughed and tossed Hammond a beer and an unopened bag of freshly-popped popcorn. Hammond nodded his thanks and went to find a seat among the raucous crowd of hunters, angels, and friends gathered around the giant flat-screen TV that Gabriel had set up to display the upcoming showdown, a video feed that would also be displayed at the SGC and in Atlantis. No sooner had Hammond sat down, however, than the man next to him straightened to attention instinctively.

“As you were, son,” he said with a smile, forestalling a salute. “Understand we owe your boys a world of gratitude for their service.”

John Winchester returned the smile. “Understand my boys owe your people a world of gratitude for the help and the home.”

“One good turn deserves another, not that I had much to do with it.”

Mary Winchester leaned forward to see past her husband’s shoulder. “The Stargate program wouldn’t be what it is without your leadership, General. You probably have more to do with where Sam and Dean are than we know.”

Hammond raised his beer to her. “Thank you, ma’am.”

The sound of footsteps suddenly came from the TV, causing the Roadhouse crowd to fall silent. Menva, who had abandoned her host’s dirty nightgown in favor of a flowing white chiton, entered the meeting room with dragons flanking her and shapeshifters and werewolves guarding her from behind. “Stay close,” she ordered. “Don’t make a move unless her guards attack first. But whatever happens, leave Abaddon to me.”

“Yes, Mother,” her guards chorused.

“That’s creepy,” John muttered.

Mary shushed him.

A moment later, a black-leather-clad Abaddon strolled in with her own guards, looking around the room appraisingly. “Angel-proof,” she stated. “Nice touch.”

Menva looked surprised, but only for a moment. “No sense in letting anyone interrupt.”

Abaddon chuckled. “No. No sense at all. Especially not your minions.” She snapped her fingers, and all of Menva’s guards dropped dead.

Menva snarled, and all of Abaddon’s guards exploded in flashes of orange-gold light. “I thought we were here to talk.”

Hammond opened his bag of popcorn and offered some to John.

“Oh, by all means!” Abaddon returned as the two queens began to circle each other. “After all, we have so much in common. I really don’t see why you and your subjects insist on standing in my way.”

“ _You_ have subjects,” Menva snapped. “ _I_ have children. I am nothing like you, Destroyer. I give life; you only take it.”

“Don’t make me laugh! You twist human souls into something God never meant them to be, same as me. You just paper over it by claiming you’re making something new. Well, newsflash, sister: your science fair pets serve Lucifer’s purpose just as well as my kind does.”

“Lucifer! You think I’d ever bow to that jumped-up twit? I am a _goddess!_ ”

“You are a _ghost!_ ”

“What does that make you?”

An angel sword flashed in Abaddon’s hand, but Menva shot it away with a bolt of lightning. Empty-handed, Abaddon lunged at Menva, and the two grappled with each other in what might look like a cat fight but for the massive thunderstorm it caused outside the building. Yet just when it seemed they were about to reach the point of a death blow, each pulled at the other... and suddenly their lifeless corporeal forms fell away as a column of whirling yellow light and black smoke spun up out of them, through the ceiling, and out of sight.

The angels, the Ancients, and everyone who’d worked for the SGC in life leapt to their feet with a roar of victory.

“What just happened?” Mary demanded.

“Stalemate!” Hammond declared.

Caltus turned around and explained, “Abaddon and Menva have thrown each other into another plane of existence, where they’ll be locked in eternal combat until the _real_ Apocalypse happens.”

“That’s how Oma Desala got rid of Anubis,” Hammond added, “and Morgan le Fay did the same thing to Adria.”

John frowned. “That doesn’t tell us anything, and you know it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Caltus stated before any more verbal barbs could be thrown. “The point is, they’re both gone for good. The war’s over.”

Now it was the hunters’ turn to cheer.

* * *

At the SGC, where the occupants of the bunker had gone to watch the showdown with their friends in the Stargate program, it was all Henry could do not to sob in relief. Abaddon was defeated. The Letters were safe, and so were the boys. The nightmare was over.

Except that it wasn’t.

Everyone who’d died was still dead—Millie, John, the elder Letters. Henry was still stuck in another century. He was still remarried and expecting another child. And none of that could be undone.

Struggling to get a handle on his emotions, he slipped out of the conference room into the hallway. But he’d only managed a couple of ragged breaths before he noticed Raphael standing in the doorway to Landry’s office.

“You have visitors,” Raphael said and beckoned Henry toward the office.

Henry swallowed hard, steeled himself, and walked into the office, not sure what to expect. He halfway thought it might be the boys. But he froze with his mouth hanging open when he turned at Raphael’s direction and saw the last people he would ever have expected to see.

“Millie? _Johnny?_ ”

Millie smiled. “Hello, Henry.”

So did John as he nodded once. “Pops.”

“What... how....”

“Raphael brought us down to talk to you. Said he still owes us.”

Millie stepped forward and put a cold hand on his arm. “I’m not angry, darling. We know what happened, why you disappeared and why you remarried so quickly. It’s not like I pined once you were gone. Sure, it hurt, but I found a good man in Lawrence and married him.”

A tear slid down Henry’s cheek. “H-how long after....”

“A couple of years. But I hadn’t known him nearly as long as you’ve known Josie. And I knew all along you still loved her.”

“I... I never meant....”

“No! Oh, no, darling, I know you were never unfaithful. I never thought that. You’ve just been in a difficult situation these last few months. And things like that happen.”

“Not like you’ve had a hell of a lot of choice in the matter, either,” John added. “I know what that’s like, trust me.”

Henry looked at him. “You’re not mad?”

John huffed. “Hell, Pops, I spent too much of my life mad at you for no reason. And I had my share of slip-ups after Mary died—even had a kid from one of ’em. Didn’t tell ’em anything. Thought I was keepin’ ’em safe.” He shook his head. “Instead, I got ’em killed.”

“You couldn’t know, John,” Millie stated.

“I should have. But I was too wrapped up in worrying about Sammy to realize any hunter’s family is endangered by what he does, no matter how he tries to shield their innocence, give ’em normal.”

Henry couldn’t help chuckling at that. “Guess you come by it honestly, huh, Sport?”

John ducked his head and smiled a little, much like Sam and Dean did when embarrassed.

“I do love you both. I always have, and I always will.”

“We know,” Millie and John chorused.

“But that doesn’t mean you can’t love your new family just as much,” Millie continued. “Love’s not a zero-sum game.”

Henry tried to swallow down the lump in his throat and nodded. “And John, I’ll... I’ll do my best to do right by your boys.”

Now it was John’s turn to chuckle a little. “They’ll probably outlive their cousins’ grandkids, at this rate. But... would you do one thing for me, s-something I left too long, forgot ’til it was too late?”

“Name it.”

“When you see the boys again... tell ’em I’m proud of ’em.”

Henry sniffled and nodded. “Sure. I’ll do that.”

“Goodbye, Henry,” Millie said, squeezing his arm. “Go live well. We’ll see you on the other side.”

“Just not too soon,” John rumbled, a twinkle in his eye belying his gruffness. “Bye, Pops.”

“Goodbye,” Henry breathed.

And then he was alone.

Even as he swiped a tissue from the box on Landry’s desk, he felt the sharpness of his grief and guilt ease. This was closure, he supposed, and it was surprising how much it helped. His losses still made him ache, but at least... at least he knew Millie wasn’t hurt by his moving on.

Once he’d regained his composure, he stepped back out into the hall, determined to find Josie. They’d inadvertently been avoiding each other the past few months—work had legitimately taken up almost all of their waking moments and exhausted them too deeply to do more than eat and sleep when they weren’t busy, but they hadn’t made time for each other in the rare lulls between storms. That needed to change. Maybe he hadn’t had much choice in the timing of everything, but he would have married her eventually. As it was... well, there was no reason to only ‘make the best of it.’ He wanted to make it the best.

But suddenly he realized that she’d left the conference room shortly after victory was assured, and he had no idea where she’d gone. Looking around, he saw that the hall dead-ended in one direction, but at the corner at the other end of the hall stood a young blonde lady in nondescript civilian clothes—grey sweater, tweed skirt, black-rimmed glasses—cradling an open book in her arms. He’d never seen her before. She seemed to be waiting for him, though, and as he walked toward her, she pointed down the next corridor.

“What....” he began.

“You’re looking for your wife,” she answered quietly. “She’s down that hall.”

Puzzled, he started to turn the corner but glanced down at the lady as he passed. His height allowed him to see over the top of the book, and though she pressed it to her chest, she didn’t do so fast enough to prevent him from seeing that the text was all in handwritten Greek and that between the pages rested a bookmark woven of golden thread. He paused, staring at her.

“Go to your wife, Mr. Winchester,” the Fate ordered gently and vanished.

The soft sound of crying pulled him out of his shock. Sure enough, just where the Fate had pointed him, there she was, standing alone with her back to him, trying to cover her tears with one hand while the other rested on her growing belly. Josie. His best friend.

His wife.

His _pregnant_ wife.

He walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Hi,” he breathed.

She sniffled and turned to him, her eyes troubled. “Henry, I....”

“Shh.” He wiped the tears from her chin and kissed her. “I’ve missed you, sweetheart.”

The fear cleared from her face then, and she let him pull her into a warm hug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“So am I. But it’s over.”

“I love you so much....”

“What say we start over from here, now, today?”

She pulled back a little. “How do you mean?”

“Josie, my love, will you marry me?”

She giggled. “We’re already married, silly.”

He smiled. “I just had to say it.”

“Well, then I guess I ought to say yes, shouldn’t I?”

He kissed her again and felt not the slightest twinge of guilt.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Atlantis, the initial jubilation had subsided enough that Woolsey was just beginning to take suggestions on how to notify the rest of the galaxy that the danger was past. But the discussion was interrupted by a klaxon and announcement of “Unscheduled offworld activation!”

Everyone charged out of the conference room just in time to see what looked like a data crystal slide through the Gate, somehow bypassing the Gate shield, before the wormhole disconnected. There was a long moment of wary silence in which no one approached the Gate, but the object just lay on the ground, inert.

Finally, McKay produced a handheld scanner to get what readings he could from it remotely. “I’m not picking up any kind of energy signature,” he reported.

Woolsey nodded once. “All right. Proceed with caution.”

Blaster at the ready, Ronon accompanied McKay as the scientist approached the object. McKay punched some commands into his scanner and made speculative noises, but finally he said, “Yeah, it... looks like it’s just a data crystal.”

“Dr. Zelenka,” Woolsey asked, “would you please bring Dr. McKay a firewalled computer to read the crystal?”

Zelenka nodded and left to get the requested computer as McKay cautiously picked up the crystal and brought it back to Stargate Ops. At Sheppard’s suggestion, his team, Woolsey, and the Winchesters met Zelenka in a lab and watched as McKay plugged the crystal into the firewalled laptop’s crystal reader attachment. Once McKay called up the crystal’s contents, a list of twenty or so sets of coordinates appeared on the laptop’s screen, followed by a string of text that wasn’t Wraith or Ancient.

“What’s it say?” Ronon asked.

“It’s Asgard,” Sam said quietly. “It basically means, ‘You’re welcome.’”

But Zelenka was looking at the coordinates. “Aren’t those....”

“Worlds at the edge of the galaxy,” McKay answered.

Woolsey asked the _Daedalus_ and the _Apollo_ to investigate, since they had remained in Pegasus because of Earth being more or less quarantined. When Caldwell and Ellis returned, they reported that the worlds were all intact... but the Wraith hives that had been in orbit around them weren’t.


	14. Epilogue: Surrey Down

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” Dean asked Lisa as the Winchesters and Braedens made their way to the Gateroom two weeks later.

“What? No, of course not,” Lisa replied. “Why should I mind?”

“It’s your apartment, technically.”

“Yeah, technically, but how much time are we going to spend there?”

“True.”

“Besides which, they’re family. And it’ll save them having to look for a place, plus getting set up with doctors and all that.”

Somehow the mention of doctors made Dean uneasy, but he didn’t think there was anything Lisa had heard from Earth that he hadn’t, so he chalked it up to nerves. The brothers had been ordered back to Earth for one last intergalactic briefing on the demon threat, and Landry had specifically requested that Ben and Lisa come with them to discuss their future status in the Atlantis expedition. Ben’s grades were good, and Lisa’s classes were a hit, so Dean didn’t expect Landry to be planning to send them home... but he still worried.

“Will you guys have to go straight to your meetings?” Ben asked Sam.

“I don’t think so,” Sam answered. “The main briefing’s not until after lunch, so that should give us some time to hang out for a while. Bobby said he’d meet us at the Gate.”

“Okay, cool.”

After some brief leave-taking, the Gate activated, and the family walked through to the SGC. Sure enough, Bobby was there at the foot of the ramp, and so was Henry, looking much happier and healthier than he had at Christmas. They all exchanged hugs and greetings, and then Bobby ushered them toward the guest quarters where they’d most likely spend the night if they had to stay over.

“I’d love for you and Josie to sublet ‘my’ apartment,” Lisa told Henry as they walked. “We can take care of that this afternoon, while Sam and Dean are in their meeting.”

Henry sighed in relief. “Wonderful. Thanks. We’d be able to afford a house soon on what the SGC’s paying us, but Lebanon’s such a small town, and Josie just feels a lot safer coming here to see Dr. Lam.”

Doctors again. Something Was Up.

Bobby noticed the look on Dean’s face. “You ain’t heard _why_ they’re movin’ to Colorado Springs, have you?”

Dean frowned. “Heard you and Rufus were retiring, becoming Men of Letters—something about your house blowing up?”

“Yeah, bunch of ghouls got it into their heads they’d be helpin’ Menva by takin’ us out, blew up my house when I wasn’t in it but they were. I was here, and Rufus was in Vermont. Good thing I’d already asked Cas to help me move my books and your car down to the bunker. But that ain’t all that’s been goin’ on,” Bobby added with a pointed look at the back of Henry’s head. “I mean, I’m sure a couple o’ newlyweds don’t want to spend too much time with us old coots—”

Henry snorted in amusement.

“—but if it was as simple as that, Rufus has a place in Montana where we could hole up.”

Henry looked over his shoulder at Sam and Dean. “Boys, I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. We really have been swamped.”

“Telling us what?” the brothers chorused.

But before he could answer, Josie came around the corner from the other direction... and the reason for Henry’s apology became as obvious as the fact that she was wearing maternity pants. Lisa saved the day by rushing forward to hug Josie and talk new-mom talk for a minute while Dean tried to figure out what his reaction was supposed to be.

Bobby nudged him. “Say something, boy.”

Henry chuckled. “It’s all right, Bobby. It is kind of awkward.”

“Um,” said Sam. “Congratulations?”

“Thanks, Sam.”

“When is she due?”

“Mid-October, we think. Early November at the outside. Dr. Lam’s not exactly sure, since we were too busy to come in until Abaddon was defeated. I mean, Josie’s been taking care of herself, but... let’s just say I have no idea how Bobby’s managed his switchboard on his own all these years.”

“Ain’t been this busy since the Apocalypse,” Bobby returned.

 _Mid-October_ , Dishon mused. _That would mean—_

 _Shut up, shut up, do NOT go there!_ Dean interrupted, then managed to plaster on a smile and give Josie a hug, just in time to get kicked in the gut by the baby. Literally.

Josie chuckled ruefully and rubbed her belly. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

And somehow that jarred the ‘step-grandmother’ label enough that he could see her instead as a young wife and mother-to-be, and he managed a real smile. “Let’s try that again,” he said and hugged her more carefully, and she gave him a peck on the cheek as a thank you.

Sam, of course, didn’t get kicked at all.

Then Lisa insisted on taking Ben and Josie to the mess hall for ice cream, leaving the men standing in the hall and feeling awkward. Henry rubbed the back of his neck; Sam ran a hand through his hair to push the bangs out of his eyes, even though they hadn’t quite grown out that far yet; and Dean ran a hand over his mouth.

Bobby sighed. “Let’s go, idjits.”

“So yes,” Henry said as they started walking again, “it’s a lot easier for Josie to see someone here who’ll understand if she says, ‘Gee, it must have happened during our literally enchanted honeymoon because we’ve been too busy saving the world since the spell was broken’!”

Sam let out a low whistle, and Dean uttered a quiet Goa’uld curse.

Henry didn’t say anything else until they got into the guest quarters. Then, once the door was closed and everyone had sat down, he said more quietly, “I don’t think it was an accident, though, and not just because Abaddon had a spell placed on us to get us out of the way. After the showdown, we got separated... and one of the Fates helped me find her.”

“The Fates?” Sam repeated. “As in—”

“The Moirai. I can’t be sure, but I think it was Atropos. I can’t imagine why, though.”

“I can guess. I finally found the section of Janus’ journal where he explains the Ancient controls in the bunker; he did intend for it to be a place to protect our branch of the family, as well as the Men of Letters’ knowledge. He didn’t tell anyone else those controls were there, but he knew there would be generations of Winchesters who knew about the gene and would eventually end up using the place—more than just the three of us. But if Dean and I remain Tok’ra, neither one of us will be having any more kids. Right now, our line ends with Ben.”

Dean nodded. “And Ben wants to stay in Atlantis. He’s even got a girlfriend on New Athos. No Winchesters left on Earth, no Winchesters in the Men of Letters... and makes it a little hard to have a Celebrity Death Match.”

Henry paled. “You think they’ll try again?”

Sam shook his head. “Not in our lifetime. And if we’re still Tok’ra, that could be another two hundred years.”

Henry inclined his head a little and murmured, “So that’s what John meant.”

Dean turned his head a little. “Pardon?”

“Sorry. Um, Raphael gave me a chance to talk to your father’s spirit for a moment. I promised to do what I could for you, and he said you’d probably outlive your cousins’ grandchildren.”

“Huh,” said Sam.

Henry took a deep breath and continued, “He... also asked me to tell you he’s proud of you. He said that was something he’d forgotten to say until it was too late.”

Dean didn’t know how to feel at that revelation. Dishon gave him the mental equivalent of a side hug.

Just then, Bobby’s phone rang. “Singer,” he answered. “Hey, Gwen. ... Well, I’m sure sorry to hear that, but....” There was a long pause before he said, “Huh. That is suspicious. Listen, see if you can’t get permission to bring the body to the Air Force Academy Hospital for an autopsy—Colorado Springs, right. If you need, I can get Sam and Dean’s okay.” He covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “Samuel Campbell’s dead, and Gwen thinks it’s our kind of weird.”

Dean frowned but nodded. “I’m oldest next of kin. Let’s do this.”

Bobby nodded back and took his hand off the mouthpiece. “Gwen? Yeah, Dean’s right here, okayed it.” After another pause, he nodded again. “All right, we’ll let ’em know to expect you. You take care, girl. And tell Mark he talks too much.” Dean could hear her bark of laughter as Bobby smiled and hung up.

“Why bring the body to the Academy Hospital?” Sam asked.

Bobby sighed and pocketed his phone. “Gwen said Samuel met up with her and Mark on Monday to discuss a hunt, told them he’d started feelin’ poorly a few days before that but figured it was just the flu or somethin’. By Wednesday he was hospital-bad. They couldn’t find any kind of infection, but his tissues were dyin’, and all his organs were shuttin’ down at once. Never could get him stabilized, and he passed a few hours ago.”

Henry hummed thoughtfully. “Suspicious timing, to say the least, that he would deteriorate so quickly after Abaddon’s departure.”

Sam frowned. “Wait a minute, that sounds like....”

“Beckett,” Dean agreed.

“But that doesn’t make sense. I mean, you weren’t cloned. I wasn’t cloned. _Adam_ wasn’t cloned.”

Henry stared at him.

“That’s why I told Gwen to bring him here,” Bobby said. “Lam or Brightman or somebody should be able to get enough out of an autopsy to tell. Abaddon’s been dealin’ with rogue angels, Trust agents, Lucian Alliance... no tellin’ what she had access to.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Before that first assault on the Pentagon, the wards were broken in the middle of the night, and the demon that tried to use the communication stones got there several hours early. Would this other case have been among files she could have accessed during that time?”

Sam nodded slowly. “Possibly. And that happened before Abaddon had Ion raise Samuel.”

Dean sighed and scrubbed at his eyes. “Dunno which is weirder, a grandfather who’s younger than me or a grandfather who’s a clone.”

“I still can’t figure out why she would have cloned him, if that’s what happened.”

“And I still can’t get used to hearing the word ‘clone’ used so casually,” Henry confessed.

Sam’s head bobbed. “Winchesters,” Salim stated, “can get used to anything.”

“I suppose so.”

“Case in point,” Bobby muttered and looked at his watch. “C’mon. Let’s go get some lunch before Lisa decides to drag Josie out to the mall.”

* * *

The briefing was pretty much all good news for a change. Demons and monsters were still sniping at each other some because each side blamed the other for their defeat, but hunters were already mopping up the monster threat as best they could, and the angels were in the process of rescuing the captured souls and working with the Reapers to make sure the souls reached their proper destinations safely. Gabriel had gotten his Trickster on again and faked a message from Lucifer that convinced the severely weakened demon factions to settle their dispute Downstairs. If that hadn’t worked, though, the Campbells were still out of the Purgatory hunt now that Samuel was dead, and the Lucian Alliance was in tatters and couldn’t assist Hell any further even if its leaders wanted to. The Alliance had worn out its victim card, too, at least as far as most of the Milky Way was concerned; though they had been legitimately deceived and victimized, the general consensus was that they deserved their misfortune because they’d willingly worked with demons. In Pegasus, by contrast, the Coalition was stronger than ever, and what few unwary hives in the stakeout zone the Asgard had missed had since been taken out by the combined fleets of the Genii and the Travelers. Several Milky Way worlds had expressed interest in forming a similar coalition, with or without the involvement of the Tau’ri, and their representatives would be meeting with the Nox while they were all still at the SGC.

Dean knew better than to think these victories would solve all of the galaxies’ problems. Monsters and Wraith might never become extinct. The Alliance might disband if it kept failing, but sooner or later another group with a similar philosophy would show up again—hell, Earth still had neo-Nazis and various flavors of Mafia, even though Hitler and Capone and their cronies had been dead for decades. And that also guaranteed that Hell would eventually rebuild and start attacking Earth again, maybe even find a way to renew the assault on other worlds.

Even so, a win was a win, and these wins were huge. Plus, Raphael had finally truly seen the error of his ways, and with him openly backing Gabriel and Cas, Heaven would be stable and (probably) not trying to jump-start the Apocalypse again in the foreseeable future. And even if some other angel went rogue, it shouldn’t go after the new aunts, uncles, and cousins as long as Sam and Dean were still viable vessels.

Maybe, just maybe, it really was going to be okay for Henry and Josie to start a new branch of the family, for Bobby to retire to the bunker, and for Sam and Dean to retire to Atlantis.

The meeting had just adjourned when Lam radioed for Sam, Dean, Bobby, and the angels to meet her in a meeting room up on the entry level, which was in the NORAD section and didn’t require SGC clearance. They arrived to find Lam talking with Gwen Campbell, who looked pale and drawn. Bobby gave her a comforting hug before introducing her to Sam and Dean.

“Hey,” Dean said, shaking her hand warmly. “Thanks for your help.”

“Glad I could,” she replied. “You sure have delicate features for a hunter.”

Dean snorted.

“Sorry for your loss,” Sam said when she took his hand to shake.

She shook her head. “Don’t be. He never did come clean about what he was after, just told me and Mark to tell you he was sorry for makin’ threats. You guys have nice voices,” she added, looking at Dean again. “What was with the distortion on that video call?”

Dean shrugged. “Had to shake him up somehow.”

“It was Gabriel’s idea,” Sam added.

Gabriel scoffed but didn’t even hint at the other reason: neither brother had felt confident of their ability to talk to Samuel without lighting into him for agreeing to Abaddon’s deal in order to resurrect Mary. They’d all known the Tok’ra could keep the conversation on track.

“Mark’s still at the hospital,” Gwen said as everyone sat down. “Hated to stick him with makin’ arrangements, but Dr. Lam couldn’t get permission for both of us to come on base here for the autopsy results.”

Bobby nodded. “And it’s a cinch you’d have a hell of a time gettin’ a full explanation out of ’im if he’d been the one to come.”

Gwen huffed. “Yeah. Especially with this non-disclosure agreement I just had to sign.”

Lam held up a hand. “I asked you to sign it because I felt your help in stopping Abaddon entitled you to a fuller explanation than the rest of your family will receive. Officially, the cause of death will be organ failure due to natural causes. That’s the truth—but it’s not the whole truth.”

“Were we right?” Sam asked.

Lam nodded. “Partly, anyway. The necrosis was caused by cellular degradation, and in the tissue samples I studied, the telomere length was closer to what one would expect in a man over the age of 100 than in someone who’d been only in his fifties when he died.”

Gwen frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It’s not clear how,” Sam explained, “but Abaddon apparently had access to some kind of alien technology and used it to clone Samuel.”

“Clone, yes,” Lam interrupted before Gwen could react with more than a dropped jaw. “But that’s where things get weird. The DNA from that tissue wasn’t from one of your relatives, but it was an exact match for someone else already in our database.”

A beat passed before Sam and Dean chorused, “Caldwell?!”

“Got it in one.”

Cas tilted his head in confusion. “Why would such an action be necessary? Zachariah was able to raise Adam Milligan from ashes a year after his death.”

Raphael leaned back in his chair. “ _Only_ a year later, yes, and Zachariah was considerably more powerful than Ion, especially since he was acting with Michael’s approval and with the full might of Heaven at his disposal, which Ion was not. Samuel died and was burned thirty-eight years before his return; if any of his own DNA survived, it would almost certainly be too little to use to reconstruct a working body, whether by our methods or by alien means.”

“I’d say alien,” Gabriel agreed. “The Winchesters are right; the pattern of breakdown’s too close to another classified case to be coincidence. And in that case, the clone’s creator retained a measure of psychic control over the clone, which could explain why Samuel kept working for Abaddon apart from the promise of Mary’s return.”

Lam nodded. “I thought the same. But that brings up a question for Gwen. In that other case, the clone had to be stabilized with a serum, and after he was rescued, he nearly died before we could get the serum recreated. He still needs a shot every week. Did Mr. Campbell take shots of any kind?”

Gwen thought for a moment, then shook her head. “If he did, he hid it damn well.”

Then something dawned on Dean and Dishon at the same time. “He might not have had to,” Dean said, “if Abaddon was the one keeping him alive in the first place.”

Lam frowned. “How do you mean?”

“She needed an empty body, right, for Ion to plug Samuel’s soul into?”

“More or less,” Cas agreed.

Dean nodded. “But unless the alien tech she used was designed to build an empty body, which it probably wasn’t, the clone would have formed with its own soul, shaped by a copy of Caldwell’s memories and personality.”

Sam leaned forward as he caught on. “The Men of Letters had a case where Abaddon was stealing souls out of living humans. So she could have done the same thing to the clone and then had Ion shove Samuel’s soul into the body.”

Raphael nodded. “But she would have had to bind the two together somehow, because the body wasn’t Samuel’s to begin with. Ion might have been able to force the possession to occur, but Abaddon would have had to be the one to force it to take. Perhaps she even used her own life force to forge the bond—after all, as a Knight of Hell, she would not have expected to die.”

“And Ion wasn’t a healer,” Gabriel added. “He wouldn’t have known how to resolve the clone’s cellular instability. Tying the body to herself at that level would have given Abaddon even more leverage over Samuel, and it maintained the illusion of a normal resurrection. But even though it seems the body’d accepted the transplanted soul by the time Abaddon was defeated, the instability issue remained.”

“I know of one way to find out,” Cas said and disappeared for a moment. When he returned, he reported, “There is an extra soul in Heaven that identifies itself as Steven Caldwell. It arrived the day of Samuel’s return, delivered personally by Ion.”

“Reckon that’s one reason Thanksgiving was quiet,” Bobby ventured. “Abaddon was tryin’ to get hold of the equipment she needed to pull this off, not to mention Caldwell’s DNA.”

Gwen swore and slumped forward, head in hands.

Bobby rubbed her back a little. “Sorry, girl.”

“I knew it was weird,” she said, her voice wavering. “I didn’t think....” She swore again, more violently.

“Pretty much,” was all Sam said.

Everyone waited while Gwen struggled to pull herself together enough to take a deep breath and sit back again. “Okay,” she said, as much to herself as to everyone else. “Natural result of an unnatural return. I... I think the rest of the family will accept that.”

Sam nodded. “Give them our regards, will you?”

She huffed. “If they’ll accept ’em, sure.”

“And we’ll tell Chuck we saw you.”

“Thanks. Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine.”

“Good. Good.” She sat for a moment, nodding slowly like a bobblehead, as if she didn’t know what else to do.

“You okay to drive?” Bobby asked.

Gwen let out a harsh, humorless laugh. “No.”

“I’ll take you back to the hospital, then.”

“All right, thanks. And from there, I’m going to make Mark drive while I get very, very drunk.”

Dean couldn’t help smiling. “Can’t say I blame you.”

Gwen took another deep breath and stood, thanked Lam, and accepted hugs from the Winchesters before taking her leave of the angels and letting Bobby steer her outside. The angels took off, too, leaving the Winchesters to thank Lam for her help and start back down to the guest quarters.

“There’s only one thing that bothers me,” Dean said once they’d switched elevators and were back in the SGC’s part of the base. “Why Caldwell?”

Sam shrugged. “Everyone’s got a double. Guess the illusion that it was Samuel’s body mattered more than an actual DNA match. Or maybe there wouldn’t have been a way to use another family member’s DNA to reconstruct his or something. Or... maybe Abaddon was just in a hurry.”

Dean suddenly remembered having once told McKay that there was no logic in magic and sighed. “Guess I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“I don’t get demons, either.”

Sam chuckled.

They stepped off the elevator together, only to be called back to the conference room on 27. Ben and Lisa met them on that floor, and the four of them walked to the conference room together. The Nox were just wrapping up their interest meeting, so the Winchesters and Braedens waited in the hall while most of the delegates filed out. Only Landry, O’Neill, and the Tok’ra delegation remained. And suddenly Dean felt nervous again.

 _Let’s hope this is good news_ , he thought to Dishon as they sat down, with Lisa beside Dean and Ben on the other side of Sam.

 _We’ll know soon enough_ , Dishon replied.

This meeting got off to a pleasant enough start, as Landry introduced the Braedens to Erastus and the other Tok’ra and gave O’Neill a very positive report on how the family was getting along in Atlantis. Before Dean could wonder out loud why the meeting was even needed, O’Neill gave the floor to Erastus.

“We are still desperately short of willing hosts,” Erastus reported. “So much so that the High Council has agreed that should Sam and Dean be amenable to the idea, they are to remain blended with Salim and Dishon.”

“Awesome!” Dean replied before he could stop himself, and Dishon cheered.

Sam grinned. “We’re definitely amenable, Master Erastus. Thank you.”

Erastus held up a hand. “You may not wish to thank me quite yet. The High Council was divided on whether to allow you to remain in Atlantis.”

Dean’s smile faded.

O’Neill frowned. “Is there a problem with them being in Atlantis?”

“No,” Erastus admitted. “But as yet, neither is there a clear benefit to the Tok’ra. So far, they have not encountered any information or technology that would be of particular use to us.”

“Well, to be fair, they have been pretty busy.”

“We understand, but that did not sway certain members of the High Council. However, they did agree to a compromise.” He gestured toward a member of the delegation whose host was a sweet-faced old lady. “Kadena’s host is nearing the end of her life. She will need a new host in only a matter of days, and we cannot locate one so soon among our other contacts. The High Council is willing to allow Salim and Dishon to remain in Atlantis if another member of the expedition will agree to host Kadena. If not, their orders are for Salim and Dishon to return to our homeworld and await reassignment somewhere in the Milky Way.”

Ben gasped, and Lisa grabbed Dean’s hand. He rubbed his thumb over hers.

“You can’t insist on that,” O’Neill stated. “These men have family here on Earth. If you stick them out there chasing what’s left of the Lucian Alliance, they might never see that family again.”

“That is the High Council’s decision,” Erastus returned flatly.

“No!” Ben cried, but Sam cut him off with a hand on his shoulder.

“What about us?” Lisa asked. “We moved to Atlantis specifically to be with Sam and Dean.”

Landry sighed. “Unfortunately, Ms. Braeden, if the Winchesters leave Atlantis, we won’t be able to justify your remaining there to the IOA. You’d be required to return to Earth.”

Lisa’s mouth fell open.

But Kadena raised a hand. “I may have a solution. Lisa, you care for Dean, do you not?”

“Of course I do,” Lisa returned, squeezing Dean’s hand.

“And Dishon?”

Lisa looked at Dean and nodded. “We’re friends.”

“I, too, am friends with Dishon. And though we had not seen each other since the death of his last mate, I had hoped that perhaps we might become more than friends when we met again.”

Dean gulped but gave way when Dishon nudged him. “Kadena... I had no idea,” Dishon said.

“It may be too soon to ask for your love, Dishon, but... would you be willing to be joined? For their sake?”

 _Joined?_ Dean asked. _Like—married?_

 _In a sense_ , Dishon answered him before sighing and looking at Lisa. “I can’t answer that, old friend,” he said aloud. “It’s up to Lisa.”

Lisa laughed incredulously. “ _This_ is my choice? Accept a Tok’ra or lose my job, my home, my son’s father, everything?!”

“You can’t force this on her, Erastus,” O’Neill insisted.

Erastus tilted his head. “I have not done so. Another member of the expedition would be acceptable.”

Sam shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, but knowing that Kadena’s got a crush on Dishon, if her host develops a crush on Dean....”

“Dean will not be unfaithful to Lisa,” Dishon insisted.

“I know that. I’m just saying, it could get really awkward.”

Landry cleared his throat. “Why don’t we give Ms. Braeden some time to think it over?”

Erastus looked at Kadena, who nodded, and sighed. “She may have twenty-four hours, no more. Hilda’s condition does not permit me to grant a longer delay.”

Kadena’s head bobbed. “I am sorry, Lisa,” Hilda said. “Age takes its toll on all of us eventually. But Kadena and I are at your disposal should you wish to talk with us before you decide.”

Lisa nodded. “Okay. Thank you. I, um... I might do that.”

Landry officially dismissed the meeting, but only he and the Tok’ra delegates left the room. The Winchesters and Braedens stayed where they were, and so did O’Neill.

After a moment of silence, O’Neill sighed. “Look, Ms. Braeden, I understand your position.”

Lisa huffed. “Do you?”

“Yes, I do. The first time we met the Tok’ra, they took my team prisoner and wouldn’t agree to help us or release us until one of us agreed to become a host for one of their elders. Finally, Carter offered to talk her dad into doing it—he was dying of cancer. But that was... it was a tough spot. So was the time I had to become a temporary host because I got hit with a disease that didn’t have any other cure. Actually had to go live with the Tok’ra for a while,” he added, looking at the Winchesters, “so I know what you two are facing, too. Not like it’s quite fair for Salim and Dishon to be stuck in Atlantis, but....”

Dishon shook his head. “Don’t worry about us, General. We had difficulty returning to life as usual after the Apocalypse—we shared our memories, but the other Tok’ra could not understand them. Perhaps we’ve become more Winchesters than we should.”

“Damn straight,” Salim agreed, which made Ben chuckle in spite of himself.

O’Neill nodded. “I see what you mean. Anyway, Ms. Braeden, my point is, I’m on your side. And if your answer is no, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure the Tok’ra change their minds.”

Lisa smiled a little. “Thank you, General.”

O’Neill nodded again and left.

Lisa did find herself needing to talk—with Sam, Salim, Dean, Dishon, and Ben; with Bobby, Henry, and Josie; just with Ben; for a couple of hours just with Dean and Dishon; and for a long time with Kadena and Hilda, with and without Dean and Dishon being present. She walked the halls for a while, first by herself, then with Dean. When they’d walked-and-talked themselves out, they sat on the couch in the guest quarters just holding each other, and even when Lisa fell asleep, Dean didn’t try to move her to the bed.

“It’s quite a commitment to make,” she finally said when he brought her coffee the next morning.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

“I, um... y-you can veto this, of course, but I think I might have an easier time dealing with it if... if you and I were married.”

His heart stuttered. “Lis, I....”

“I know, it’s sudden, but—”

“No. No, it’s not that. I just....” He blew out a breath and let Dishon take over, since he was having trouble putting the thought into words. “Dean has feared losing you for some time now,” Dishon confessed. “He never dared hope that you would even consider marriage.”

“It’s not exactly a grand romance,” she admitted with a wry smile.

“It doesn’t need to be. He loves you. And... I suppose I love you, too, in my own way.”

Her smile turned warm. “Thanks, Dishon. And you and Kadena?”

“We are old friends. I’ve known her... three hundred years, I think. I don’t know whether she and I can ever have what Henry and Josie have, but there isn’t time to find out before you must choose. As Torren says, we are the guests. I won’t tell you what to do.”

Her smile grew. “That just proves it.”

“Proves what?”

“You do love me.”

Dishon chuckled.

“Can you let me talk to Dean?”

“Sure.” Dishon gave control back to Dean, who rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. So.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“If that’s what you want to do, then yeah, let’s do it.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“You call Bobby. I’ll set things up with Landry.”

She reached for her phone. He reached for his radio.

And so, after some bureaucratic wrangling but well before the Tok’ra’s deadline, Dean and Lisa found themselves in a little chapel just off the base, standing in front of an Air Force chaplain. Bobby gave the bride away; Sam was best man, Josie matron of honor, and Ben the ring bearer; and Henry and the Winchesters’ few available friends were there to witness, as were the very bemused Tok’ra. A small reception followed in the SGC mess hall, with a cherry pie instead of wedding cake. And after Lisa finished her pie, she steeled herself and walked over to where Kadena was sitting—in a wheelchair, for Hilda’s benefit.

“Are you ready, then, Lisa?” Kadena asked.

“No,” Lisa admitted. “But I don’t know if I’d ever be ready, really, so... I guess it’s time.”

“You may kiss the bride,” Salim deadpanned.

All the humans (and one Jaffa) laughed, and Lisa bent down to give the kiss that would allow Kadena to jump from Hilda to her. Once the transfer was complete, Lisa’s eyes flashed, and Hilda slumped back in her chair.

“Goodbye, old friend,” Kadena whispered.

“Goodbye, dear,” Hilda whispered back. “Enjoy Atlantis. And Lisa, may your life be long and prosperous.”

Lisa’s head bobbed. “Didn’t know they got _Star Trek_ on other planets.”

Everyone laughed again, and the Tok’ra delegation said their farewells and wheeled Hilda down to the Gateroom. The generals left, too, but the rest of the group stayed to chat a while longer.

Finally, though, Josie put her hand on her belly with a wry chuckle. “Well, boys, I hate to break this up, but your uncle has decided it’s time for gymnastics, so we’d better head home.”

“I’ll be getting back to the Janus project in the next day or two,” Henry added. “And Landry said there’s a possibility that you’ll need to come back a few times a year to help us coordinate what we find in the bunker with what’s in Atlantis—Dean, especially, if it calls for an engineer.”

The brothers nodded and chorused, “Awesome.”

“And you are coming home for Christmas, _right?_ ” Bobby prompted.

“If it is humanly possible,” Dean promised. “Just don’t start any more wars on us.”

Everyone laughed again, and after a round of hugs and farewells, Henry, Josie, and Bobby left. Then Walter came in to alert the Winchesters that the Gate was ready to dial Atlantis, so they bade everyone else goodbye and followed Walter to the Gateroom. Seconds later, they were home and being swept into another celebration, likewise small but no less heartfelt (and with a different kind of pie brought by Halling). And when that wound down, Woolsey informed Dean and Lisa that Teyla, Keller, and Banks had set up a room on the East Pier as a honeymoon suite for them. The Lantean sun had already set by that point, so the newlyweds thanked Woolsey, asked Ben to stay with Sam for the night, and took off.

The room had a great view out over the ocean and up toward the sky, and Lisa went over to the window as Dean put out the giant Do Not Disturb sign that had been left on their bed. When he’d finished, he walked over to her and rubbed her back, finding the sensation of the naquadah in her blood both odd and oddly comforting.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

She nodded a little. “Yeah, I guess. I’m just... still getting used to the enormity of it all.”

And it finally truly registered for Dean what they’d done. They’d taken the plunge, all right, vowed to stay together for life... for a life that could last two hundred years for both of them.

A hell of a lot could change in two hundred years. A hell of a lot had already changed in just one. He’d be outliving almost everyone he knew, nearly every member of the family outside the angels. And there was no telling what the universe would throw at them next.

But he would have Cas and Gabe, and Salim and Dishon, and he’d get to know Kadena soon enough. He’d still have Lantea. He’d still have Lisa.

And most important of all, he’d still have Sam.

She turned to him. “You?”

“Hell, yeah,” he breathed and kissed her.


End file.
